The Last Winter (2006) User Reviews (110)

The Last Twenty Minutes!!!

[Wheesht · 7/10 · 21 April 2008]

Okay, nothing much to say here that hasn't already been said by all the other good reviewers on here.

Director does a cracking job of building up a sense of tension, isolation and paranoia in the first half of the film. Beautiful, haunting location shots, spot-on musical score and some clever camera-work. Undoubted nods to the likes of 'The Thing', 'Blair With Project' and 'The Shining' but the director still manages to plant enough plot devices (mysterious white box, weird noises and footprints, well-acted descent into madness) to promise a worthwhile outcome.

Sadly, at this point they run out of ideas. In fact if I didn't know better, I'd almost have thought that they switched directors about two-thirds in. Particular gripes: 1) Rubbish CGI. You do NOT need a monster to make your movie scary. Especially when it's some sort of reject from Rocky & Bullwinkle.

2) The whole final scene. Been watching Resident Evil have we? The very final shot screams that they's completely run out of money and couldn't afford to do the apocalyptic wide angle shot that was needed here.

3) Poorly done switch in pace. About two thirds in we go from slow, deliberate menace to frantic, unexplained chaos. Handled well this might have worked. It didn't.

Reading this back it sounds really negative and that's not the impression I want to give. This was a decent movie and I suppose my annoyance is that it wasn't as good as it easily could have been given a bit more care and thought.

Good effort undermined by some bad choices

[Mean_Joe_Weeks · 7/10 · 17 November 2008]

Larry Fessenden's "The Last Winter" is a ambitious and smartly made film. It's photographed beautifully and (by and large) acted with conviction and sensitivity. Though the central conceit about nature "taking revenge" is pretty corny, the atmosphere is also pretty compellingly bleak, and the tension mounts pretty effectively as things go from bad to worse. Sadly, as many other reviewers note, the ending throws it all away in a fit of awful CG monsters.

However, try turning it off right at one hour 27 minutes and 30 seconds. This would have been a solid albeit ambiguous ending; if you must watch further do it on a second viewing and consider it a deleted ending. It's just goofy and pointless, and the final "twist" at the end is telegraphed almost from the very beginning (in fact, one character early on describes aloud exactly what the twist will end up being).

Even without the ending, the script has problems with its petty black-and-white portrayal of heroic environmentalist and selfish oil guy. An ensemble atmosphere pic like this lives and dies on the believability of its characters; Perlman's Ed Pollock is simply too villainous to really be convincing, despite a few nice touches of humanity which Perlman brings to him. Le Gros' Hoffman is also a pretty unengaging hero, a blandly heroic saint of a guy who's always right about everything. I'm a serious environmentalist and a left-leaning guy, but the film's literal take on the situation (the dire warnings of natural disaster, the clear heroes and villains) is shallow at best and preachy and patronizing at the worst. It plays to the most obnoxiously self-congratulatory nature of people concerned with the issues presented here, while at the same time offering nothing of any real substance.

Still, the film itself is a pretty fun watch, and a definite step up from Fessenden's previous effort, the ambitious but amateurish "Wendigo" (the titular spirit of which gets name-checked here too!). Great photography combined with naturalistic acting from the likes of Kevin Corrigan and Zach Gilford do much to sell the vibe of the thing, and the setting and slow escalation of the action also add to the experience. Regardless of its stumbles, the film has loads of ambition to do something substantial and enduring, so even when it can't quite deliver on its promise it still beats the slew of cheap-scare horror remakes which every year become more numerous.

Dying in a Winter Wonderland

[Coventry · 6/10 · 20 September 2021]

Ah, Alaska... The Final Frontier. By far the most breathtaking place on earth, and still the most magical place I ever visited - and probably ever will visit - in my life. Since I took a road trip there (nowhere near the North Slope, obviously) I try to watch as many movies as possible that are set in Alaska, especially if they are horror. So, regardless of how good or bad Larry Fassenden's "The Last Winter" turned out, at least I was fairly confident the filming locations and the photography would be astounding.

But "The Last Winter" has more reasons for existing than just its Alaskan (and apparently also Icelandic) filming locations. It's actually a rather ambitious, creative, well-acted and contemporary relevant combo of supernatural horror and climate fiction. It's not great, but compelling enough to keep you entertained throughout its running time. A hardened crew of the North Corporation, led by the robust Pollack, is making the final preparations to start drilling for oil, in spite of doubts and warnings from the independent environmental counsellor James Hoffman. Whilst Pollack and Hoffman are constantly bickering, and not just over the environment, other crew members are behaving increasingly strange and unpredictable. Are they being haunted by the Wendigo, are toxic gassing emerging from the soil, or are the geographical isolation and working conditions just becoming too unbearable?

Mind you, I'm not upholding the mystery with that final sentence. I genuinely had no clue what was going on! Near the end, Larry Fassenden loses his grip on the plot and the overall film, but compensates the lack of logic & coherence with a couple of spectacular scenes and visual effects. The global warming and ecological morals are omnipresent in Fassenden's script, but never shoved down our throats - which is good! The cast is fantastic, the final sequence is lousy, and the film as a whole is somewhat in between.

The ending made me real angry

[dschmeding · 4/10 · 14 December 2007]

The last winter is a movie that starts up promising with an oil field expedition in the arctic plains. The atmosphere of coldness, emptiness, isolation and the resulting paranoia are captured perfectly. Basically the movie starts off a lot like The thing with some modern ecological themes mixed in. There is something under the melting ice... is it nature taking revenge on man, is it ghosts, is it just the paranoia of the crew turning on each other or is it seeping gas from the ground causing hallucinations like the ecological adviser of the team suspects?? We don't know... but I didn't care because the atmosphere, music and beautiful pictures of the white nothingness are just too gripping. Until 2/3rds into the movie I really loved it and was waiting for something to drop the curtain for applause. But it didn't happen... the finale is a mix of all those ideas mentioned, unsure if the thrown in CGI Animal-Ghosts are just products of imagination or natures wrath or whatever. You just get some themes thrown in that never were mentioned before (so what are the childhood pictures supposed to mean and why was the strange box introduced into the plot heavily in the beginning to be dropped off in the end) plus a totally open and disappointing ending that I had the impression to have seen more than once before. Honestly I was angry there about a great movie being ruined so heavily... sitting there and kind of screaming "zoomout and pan, goddamnit" to the camera man. But he didn't ... I can't believe how stupid the last shot is. Watch the first half of the movie, turn it off and leave the rest to your imagination... I think then it could be a lot better than with the directors imagination leading nowhere.

Return to Paranoia Suspense

[DanLives1980 · 7/10 · 30 November 2015]

It took me two watches to finally come around and give this movie credit where it was due. The first time I didn't see it all and I judged it unfairly as a result. It may not have helped that I saw it on the Horror Channel, which I only flick through out of boredom! It's a well crafted tale reminiscent of The Twilight Zone and with hints of Lovecraft, but also mostly steeped in reality with good use of psychology and paranoia like John Carpenter's The Thing.

You can't go wrong with it's cast, notably Ron Perlman, James Le Gros and even Kevin Corrigan and Jamie Harrold, who provide solid backing.

The theme is notably environmental horror with a big hint of the paranormal, which you can't tell in the Alaskan wilderness without a couple of natives on board. That theme, when it all mixes up with escalating events proves very atmospheric, and so whether you like the ambiguous ending or not, there's little denying that this slow-thawing chiller does a good job!

Great acting and great film making make for a creepy first half but a lack of direction ruins the second

[dbborroughs · 5/10 · 8 October 2007]

Eco horror film about the advance team from an oil company finding that the Alaskan wilderness is turning against it. Ten years earlier a test well had been drilled and what it found was kept secret. Now after years of negotiations and behind the scenes dealing the advance group from Northern Industries is preparing the way for full scale drilling. Arriving back from headquarters big wig Ron Perlman finds things are beginning to go amiss. The temperature is climbing despite it being February, its raining and more than one of the people in his crew is acting strange.

Well made and well acted this film works for about 45 minutes until one of the crew, who had gone mysteriously missing, begins to go on about strange forces and "don't you see it". No we don't. And thats the problem. much of this film we don't see anything. To be certain we do see the guy wander into the waste and freeze to death and we see his lifeless corpse moved around, and we see the ominous animals,we see the deaths and we hear the scary words about the planet in revolt, but we don't see anything that makes sense. For whatever reason none of it makes a whole hell of a lot of sense. Its formless dread that never takes form, and while our lives are often controlled by it, you can't make a movie about it. To be honest I started not to pay attention in the last 35 or 40 minutes. The mood was good, but it just wasn't scary because the reason for the fear, other than clever film-making, was missing.

I'll try it again down the road, but for now I consider it a misfire. (Also in fairness a friend at work really really liked it)

"Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make Mad": Euripides

[sol-kay · 7/10 · 19 March 2009]

***SPOILERS*** In an effort to become energy independent the US Government contracts a major drilling company to come up with a plan to drill, and pump out, the massive oil reserves in the pristine and untouched, by human hands, wilderness in the Northern Alaska permafrost.

The drilling team headed by man in charge Ed Pollack, Ron Perlman, expects to finish its job before the spring thaw sets in but things don't go exactly as they expected. With team member and environmentalist James Hoffman, James Legros, checking out the weather patterns in the area he soon realizes that something strange is going on with the February temperature in the Arctic region rising to unprecedented levels! Hoffman's greatest fears is soon realized when the permafrost, that's been frozen solid for tens of thousands of years, starts to suddenly and unexpectedly thaw out. That releases gases that start to effect not only the earths atmosphere but those on the team who, unlike Hoffman, are unaware of its existence!

Stuck because of the melted and thawed out ice and soft earth Polleck is unable to get the heavy equipment shipped to him for drilling the oil. What also happens is that members of his drilling team start to freak and go insane as their effected by the noxious gasses that's seeping out of the ground!

The first man on the team to lose it is Maxwell McKinder, Zach Gilfrod, who was sent out by Pollack to check out the oil drilling site. What Maxwell saw, or thought he saw, at the drilling site was enough to drive him insane! Knowing that the end is coming and leaving a video tape of his experiences at the site Maxwell stripped down to his birthday suite and walks out into the frozen night where he ends up dying of exposure! As the members of the drilling start to go insane and die off it becomes evident even to the Gong-Ho Pollack that there's something very disturbing going on and it has to do with the very sudden temperature change, due to the melting snow and ice, in the frozen Arctic! It's then that Pollack, and what's left of his crew, tries to make his way back to Anchorage, or civilization, before he and everyone else with him ends up dead!

***SPOILERS**** What Pollack & Co, with the exception of James Hoffman,don't quite realize and are soon to find out is that there's no place safe in Alaska anymore for them to travel to. The earth has been abused long enough in it being exploited by man and his unquenchable thirst in tapping its natural resources without any regards to the damage that he's causing it. It's in the, by the US and Canada, non-stop drilling in the pristine Northern Arctic wilderness that the tipping point was reached in where the earth decided to finally make a stand and strike back! And it will strike back-as we see in the final scene of the movie- with a fury, in a massive global warming, that hasn't been seen since the dawn of recorded history!

Unfinished concept, half-baked movie

[Superunknovvn · 4/10 · 8 June 2008]

"The Last Winter" has an effective build up. It's not completely original, mind you. We have seen that kind of setting before, in "The Thing" and a dozen other movies where a crew is isolated in a strange place where weird things start to happen. It's the memory of those far superior movies that make this one watchable at first. However, the story drags on and it all goes downhill soon.

The mysterious ongoings aren't really that intriguing, and they get less intriguing the more they are exposed. On top of that, Ron Perlman's character is annoying and unbelievable. He's just a constant pain in the a.., just for the hell of it. The worst part about "The Last Winter", however, is the resolution or rather the lack thereof. It seems as if director/writer whatshisface hadn't thought the whole thing through and just decided to go ahead with filming because the topic of global warming is so trendy right now.

Well, it's a pity. "The Last Winter" could have been a solid mystery/thriller. Instead it's an unsatisfying waste of your time. There are far too many good movies out there waiting to be watched for you to rent this one.

Interesting, flawed film with engaging themes and possibilities.

[capkronos · 7/10 · 30 March 2010]

I've never really understood why the concept of environmentalism rubs so many out there the wrong way, especially when it concerns the search for oil. We all know that oil is a non-renewable resource. We know it isn't going to last forever. We know that the pursuit of it has led not only to vast environmental damage, but also numerous wars and countless deaths. And most of us realize that some time in the near future we are going to have to adapt to using an alternate fuel source whether we like it or not. But for some unknown reason, we refuse to move forward. We won't be satisfied until every single inch of the Earth has been drilled and every single drop of oil is used up. We could care less what's being done to the Earth, our atmosphere or our fellow man as long as we have reasonably priced gas to fuel our vehicles.

Environmental concerns seem to split people right down the middle, at least here in the U.S. You have those who side with oil companies and feel there is no reason to change, at least not right now. These people typically encourage drilling wherever there is oil (regardless of whether or not it's a federally protected nature preserve or park) and view those opposed to this as being paranoid "tree huggers" and anti-capitalist. The other side seems to want to cut our dependence on oil (both foreign and domestic) and go ahead and start implementing an alternate fuel source immediately. The same split between the population can be seen for issues of global warming/climate change. There are those who believe it's needless paranoia with no solid scientific data to back it up, while others believe there's either enough evidence on hand to be concerned and ultimately we're better off being safe than sorry. And all shades of gray in between, I'm sure.

The above issues are what fuel this movie. We really don't know for sure what the extent of our damage will be when all is said and done. We also don't know what interesting ways mother nature may react to what we are doing...

The film is set in Northern Alaska at the remote site of a future oil drilling installation. Ron Perlman plays Ed Pollack, who represents the corporate side of the fight; a man excited about the prospect of a huge untapped oil reserve located within a wildlife sanctuary. Jim (played by James Le Gros) represents the other side of the struggle; an environmentalist who worries about the damage being done. His concerns are brushed off by Ed and most of the others until strange events begin occurring. The group seem to have unleashed either a supernatural force or some type of hallucinogenic toxic gas that leads to paranoia, madness and murder.

Director/producer/co-writer Larry Fessenden (HABIT, WENDIGO) does an excellent job exploiting the desolate snowy landscape and sense of icy isolation in a way comparable to Carpenter's THE THING. For the first hour he also does a good job keeping the threat obscured and dealing with our fear of the unknown. We have no idea whether we're dealing with something supernatural or natural (which may be one in the same, actually). The production values, cinematography and music are all good, as is the dialogue and acting.

Unfortunately, I felt the entire film was undermined by several wrong turns along the way. Blast it! Through some typically lame CGI, the off-screen menace is finally visualized as big, stealthy, silly-looking dinosaur/ moose hybrids (wendigos?). If we were able to fall back on the toxic gas scenario, with the monsters simply being hallucinations, this might have been forgivable. However, several occurrences - strange animal footprints seen in the snow, a plague of crows feasting on corpses, video evidence of the creatures, etc. - do no allow us to draw that conclusion. If the filmmakers had kept this more ambiguous and let we, the viewers, decide for ourselves, I'd probably consider this one of the better horror films of the decade. As is, it's an interesting, well-made, well-meaning film with a good concept, but they failed to pull it all together at the end.

Still, this one did make me think. And I'm still thinking about it a few hours after watching it, which is - to me - always a good thing.

How did things go so wrong?

[pickard233 · 4/10 · 12 August 2014]

To be honest I wasn't expecting much going into this film, yet was pleasantly surprised about it for about the first 45mins. As with all isolation movies, there is a profound sense of eeriness, and there are particular things (such as the box from the previous expedition, and a strange log book) which, I thought, were going to be good set ups for more mystery further on in the story. The acting wasn't by any means bad either. Ron Perlman was, well, Ron Perlman, and James Le Gros did fairly well as his opposite. It wasn't even that the characters were unlike-able or underdeveloped.

But there certainly is a distinct point in the film where everything well and truly turns on its head. And from there it is all down hill.

It actually baffles me completely that a film can go from eerie and interesting, to ridiculous and plain stupid like flipping a light switch. It was like the writers got to a point and said "hmm, we haven't killed many people yet. Probably should drop the storyline and do some character culling." Then proceeded to make completely irrational decisions that left you screaming at the screen in frustration.

The biggest flaw in this film is that it never returns to the eeriness it started out with. Instead it decided it needed to go cliché and kill off characters in ways that were baffling. They never circle back to the set ups that they originally established, so leave you thinking 'well, what was the point'.

And there is none!

I am serious. The end of this movie has absolutely zero relation to the main storyline! And don't even get me started on the final shot. Whoever did that stroke of genius deserves a bullet.

Overall my experience of this film went a lot like this: 'Cool. Oh yup. Hmm creepy. Oh yup. Ooo nice! Hmm, interesting. Wait, what? No seriously, what? WHY!? What the f**k. What the hell, just use the dead guys jacket!! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?? ....Are you serious. What,the,f**k. Let me guess, that's it? ...Yup damn. Well that was terrible.'

As most people have stated, it was a film that showed serious potential but threw it all away by sticking its head up its own ass. Watch the first 45mins and walk away. At least the questions you have won't be shadowed by the unnecessary questions we are force fed at the end.

Bleak and so Very Engaging

[Jamester · 9/10 · 22 September 2006]

Call it the Arctic Documentary, meets Alive!, meets Jurassic 'Horror' Park.

I saw this at the Toronto International Film Festival and enjoyed from beginning to end, rather unexpectedly with really good results.

This movie is about an oil research team in the remote reaches of the Alaskan Arctic, trying to see just how feasible oil drilling is, weighing the environmental unknowns against the corporate needs to secure 'energy independence'. Then as this clash intensifies, the human stakes start to rise out against the bleakness of the landscape.

Real, dramatic, yet occasionally intense, against a bleak landscape, the realness of this story shone through. This was my kind of movie.

Potentially great isolation flick ruined by ridiculous ending.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 6/10 · 19 February 2008]

In this supernatural-themed thriller a remote Alaskan outpost owned by a major oil company is haunted and its personnel are killed off either by the ghosts of ancient creatures—or by nature itself.Reminiscent to "The Thing" and "The Shining" the newest horror film by Larry Fessenden is mostly about global warming and its ghastly consequences.It seems that global warming somehow released the malignant spirits of ancient creatures that attack the oil company employees.In the vein of "The Shining" the personnel is slowly going insane one by one.Unfortunately the entire eerie premise is ruined by awful ending with silly CGI creatures make their appearance.The action is slow-moving,the gore is completely absent,but there are few spine-tingling moments.6 out of 10.

Stunningly awful

[imdb-9887 · 2/10 · 11 December 2007]

Starts off slow... so you think it's just taking its time, introducing you to the characters so you care when they (presumably) start to die horribly later on.

Nope. It starts off slow, because that's how the rest of it goes too. Assuming you've managed to stay awake past the first 45 minutes we have some of the characters going slowly mad while ghostly sheep or something run around on the edge of their vision and random shots of environmental disasters are scattered across the screen.

Just before you'd walk out of the cinema or fall asleep in your chair somebody finally gets killed (couldn't tell you who, despite all that build up), then they go mad/off themselves/get killed/whatever in quick succession.

So, all self-induced mania? Well an incoming group on an aircraft crash for no reason whatsoever so they obviously had the instant version of the mania.

Then it all goes completely to pot while crappy CGI see-through DragonMoose (tm) starts walking about and slapping people.

Honestly, it's worse than I've described.

Good job to the marketing team on getting all these positive reviews up here though! Two stars just for that.

Ending?

[copeland_2 · 3/10 · 13 February 2019]

True to most of the reviews the ending ruined the movie for me, but I admit it was pretty good up until then. Followed the premise then BAM! (ending) Confused. Not even good enough to watch again for in site.👎

Disappointing ending.

[bettycjung · 20 June 2018]

6/18/18. It was ok at its start. Almost like a cross between The Thing, Event Horizon and Alien. Decent EFXs, and then POW! -Not a very good ending.

The (Weak) Answer of the Nature

[claudio_carvalho · 4/10 · 11 December 2007]

The American oil company KIC Corporation is building an ice road to explore the remote Northern Artic National Wildlife Refuge seeking energy independence. Independent environmentalists work together in a drilling base headed by the tough Ed Pollack (Ron Perlman) in a sort of agreement with the government, approving procedures and sending reports of the operation. When one insane team member is found dead naked on the snow, the environmentalist James Hoffman (James Le Gros) suspects that sour gases may have been accidentally released in the spot provoking hallucinations and insanity in the group. After a second fatal incident, he convinces Ed to travel with the team to a hospital for examination. However, weird events happen trapping the group in the base.

"The Last Winter" is intriguing, beginning like "The Thing" blended with "An Inconvenient Truth" in wonderful locations in Iceland. Then the story shifts to a rip-off of "The Shining", ending in a complete and disappointing ambiguous mess. Ron Perlman plays an unpleasant character, and it is impossible to feel any empathy for Ed Pollack. It seems that the unknown director and writer Larry Fessenden was also affected by the hallucinogen gas of the story and end the movie completely mad, showing a weak answer of the nature in spite of having a plot with great potential. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Colapso no Ártico" ("Collapse in the Artic")

Good attempt at threading the contemporary with supernatural

[averyjohnson-51252 · 7/10 · 18 September 2023]

I'm a big fan of remote, icy movie settings, especially in horror; so it's possible that I'm being generous with my 7/10 rating.

This movie could have easily been spoiled with climate change preachiness, but the contemporary messaging was balanced with suspenseful dread and growing hints of the supernatural. The lead character (Perlman's Ed Pollock) is overbearing and unlikeable, but not comically so, and there was enough depth in other characters to assist the story.

If there is one criticism, the ending could be thought of as leaving too little to the imagination. Overall a nice way to spend a snowy night at home.

Eco-Terror Film With Muddled Message

[LeonLouisRicci · 3/10 · 3 October 2012]

This is one of those movies that builds, quite effectively to a suspenseful setup and then, disappoints. This repeats a number of times until the end and then it really disappoints.

It's as though the Director knows how to create an atmosphere of apprehension but fizzles on the finish line every time. There is enough here to keep you watching but ends up being a frustrating film filled with an unresolved feeling and a wanting for some sort, any, explanation for at least some of what is happening. The final shot has to be one of the most bland, what the? finishes in film history.

Ambiguity is a fine thing and can foster thought and search for insight. But here we have an Eco-terror film with a muddled message and worst of all an unconvincing, unresolved plot that is neither a convincing thesis or an entertaining ride to the edge of the tundra.

A step forward for Horror

[xxfrozenstilxx · 7/10 · 28 September 2008]

alright, well i am a special FX make up artist so I'm frequently watching new horror movies (and old) and you usually have 5 extremes that a horror movie can fit into these days: -Asian extreme -indie -wannabe horror icons -completely commercial -remakes this would fit into low budget indie, which doesn't give it justice, the masters of horror movies and the 8 films to die for comps are within this genre and id say none of the movies even meet this standard, horror seems dead right now, Asian movies are constantly being remade as well as 70's and 80's horror movies, which is alright but doesn't do justice for the originals most of the times and commercial movies have no guts, lack thought provoking plots and meaningful story lines, then you have the movies made for gores sake which does have its own underground following... but to get to my point in not sure this movie fits into any of these, it has something to say without being pushy, has talented cast and crew and ITS THE SCARIEST movie I've seen in a LONG time. What happened to trying to make someone pee their pants in a theater, isn't that the point of horror? give this a try it's not perfect but it's a step forward for horror.

Great until...

[yellowtonkatoy · 4/10 · 23 September 2007]

"The Last Winter" is a very moody film with a lot going for it in terms of having a great theme, interesting camera work, good acting and a strong cast. The director did a good job of setting up the story and following through the major plot points of horror movie structure, ala "The Thing," or "The Shining." I was pretty much with it all the way until... ahem... suddenly, Bullwinkle appeared. Come on guys, this CGI stuff just doesn't cut it on this scale. This movie would have been that much better and more mysterious had the "monsters" never appeared. I am trying to give credit where credit is due here, but didn't anyone say no to the glowing green moose-monster in a preview?

Gripping and well crafted

[CountryJim · 9/10 · 24 June 2007]

I was engaged for the whole movie. The sense of being out in the snow, building tension and sense of dread was totally captured. The characters were very well scripted and portrayed.

If anything, the underlying threat could have been totally left to the imagination without a reveal. Having said that, the total impact of the movie was nevertheless not spoiled.

The snow scenes and landscape were captured with a bleak and beautiful starkness. The action scenes were done with incredible realism and not overdone.

Ron Perlman did a great job of portraying the rough and tough oil man, yet was able to shift as the plot unfolded. All the actors and characters were totally believable, and sustained their correct arcs through the movie.

Winter, my favorite season

[kairingler · 7/10 · 25 August 2008]

I thought that this was a pretty decent movie,, it's not you're usual Hollywood Horror movie,, or anything close to it,, actually i really ain't seen anything out there like this,, this is what i would call Eco-Horror, about what nature can do to you,, the story goes is that the government wants oil out of Alaska, and they send a team of oil riggers to get the oil out,, and one by one something is wiping them out,, but we don't know what that is right away,, is it a monster. is it poison gases,, something is making people go crazy up there, any you have to figure it out for yourself. I liked all of the snow scenes,, which is practically all of the movie,, the way the wind just whips it around,, then you have the feeling of being totally isolated, you kinda feel for the characters that are stuck up the in the Arctic Circle,, all in all i found that this is a pretty good movie,, just a little hard to grasp the ending.

Engaging and creepy... and also plot less and pointless.

[The_Dead_See · 4/10 · 20 July 2008]

I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to say about this one. It's loaded with so much promise - a cast of engaging characters; a bleak, isolated setting; slow-burn direction that builds a creepy atmosphere.

But that's where the good stuff ends.

The plot (or lack thereof) seems to involve the deaths of the aforementioned characters in random, arbitrary ways with no explanations offered. A few "ecological revenge" lines are thrown but they do little to clue the viewer in to what's actually supposed to be going on. To be completely honest - I don't think even the writer and director knew what was going on. I get the feeling they said:

"Hey let's make this creepy film set in an arctic drilling station, kinda like 'The Thing'..."

"Cool, so what's the plot?"

"Ummm, I don't know, I don't think it matters. Characters can die!"

"Cool, so what's killing them?"

"Ummm, I don't know, I don't think it matters."

"I guess not. Let's get started then!"

Could've been great, but ends up mediocre at best.

[tsbproject · 5/10 · 16 October 2007]

This movie had everything it needed to be a great horror movie. Isolation, loneliness, paranoia, psychosis, an unknown terror, a bleak and unforgiving environment; and yet, it falls short, particularly in the second half of the film.

The director does a wonderful job setting the tone and mood at the outset of the film. We get to meet each of the characters and catch at least a small glimpse into each of their lives. The camera work is very well done in the first half of the movie and helps to establish the isolation of the scene. I particularly liked the dinner table conversations, the "around the compound" outsiders view of the private room of each character, and the camera work that involved each character individually.

The story starts to build after and during our foray's into the individual lives of each character. Something is happening at this forlorn outpost, and it effects everyone involved. It starts with the one character out of all that did not want to be there in the first place. To me, the pinnacle of the film occurred after this same character returns to the outpost after wandering aimlessly throughout the outer waste, neglecting both food and water upon his return. The scene of the protagonist speaking to this "paranoid" character in his room afterwords is very well done with eerie first-person views of the characters. However, after this scene, things go rapidly down hill. (The crows in the later half of the movie are a nice touch though.)

Many of the characters go off the deep-end too quickly. In other words, there is no sign of paranoia or psychosis until the time that they totally lose it. As was mentioned in another review, the CGI "moose" almost single-handedly ruined this movie for me. Throughout the second half of the film, I couldn't help feeling I had seen much of this before, for example: Bloody noses like in "The Ring", the use of a Night-Vision camera and subsequent close up shot of the subject as in "The Blair Witch Project" and finally the ending that might as well have been a direct clipping from the first "Resident Evil" film.

All in all, I really wanted to like this film, and their were some definite good parts. But overall, I couldn't help feeling disappointed by it. This may have been that the potential for a great movie was so strong at the outset, and totally fell by the wayside during the last half.

Many viewers are whining like babies about the ending.

[fedor8 · 7 October 2008]

Once again, this site's viewers got it all wrong. The rating should be much higher.

If nature doesn't care then why would it take revenge? The notion that ghosts of millions-of-years old fossils would decide to take revenge on man is a bit too preposterous, even for a horror film. Why would they care about man polluting the Earth? No clues are given as to why fossils/oil would protest against them/it being used to fuel economies around the world. Does it physically hurt the fossils/oil hurt when they're/it is being turned into energy? Or are they upset because they didn't get a cut of the profits? Maybe if Perlman had offered this living oil a percentage they'd been fine with the plans to drill... Perhaps those dragons aren't so much anti-business as they're just plain greedy. On the other hand, dragons have their families to support, too, hence a few dollars from Exxon and the like might help them lead a more luxurious life... No idea. E-mail me what you think the dragons were upset about here, or if you think they were merely being a**holes.

Forget the somewhat cheesy ending with the ghost-dragons. And forget the somewhat problematic premise about nature "taking revenge" on man, i.e. the way this idea was conceived. This is a great movie. I haven't seen such beautiful scenery since "Holy Smoke", plus there is a highly effective build-up of atmosphere that reminds me for some reason of a movie like "Safe". The cast is very good, the dialogue intelligent and realistic, the soundtrack quite suitable.

Some people wrote that the movie starts off like "The Thing". What, just because of the polar setting in a horror film? (OK, not polar but Alaskan setting: same damn thing.) Does that mean that "Lord Of The Rings" is like "Excalibur" because there are many things happening in castles? Someone even mentioned that "The Shining" was being ripped off. What, just because a person is found frozen in the snow? That makes it a rip-off of Kubrick's film? Using this logic, "Braveheart" was a rip-off of every other movie with battle-scenes in which people die from stabbing. Perhaps "2001: A Space Odyssey" was a rip-off of "Plan 9 From Outer Space"? After all, both movies have STARS IN THEM! Honestly, some people...

TLW may not be 100% original - but what movie today is? The terrific photography, an adult script (especially for a horror film), and a cast devoid of amateurs like Ashton Kutcher or over-actors such as John Travolta and Nicholas Cage, ensure that this film sticks out from the piles of filmic rubbish that are released in their dozens every week. Plus, it always helps to have a beautiful woman in the cast, this time one called Connie Britton.

As for the ending, sure it could have been better. Revealing the threat to be mere dragons mucking about in the snow was hardly an optimal conclusion to the mystery, but people who feel that the ENTIRE movie was ruined by a couple of mythic lizards are far too demanding. These are probably the same people who will accept all the illogical baloney in a De Palma or Hitchcock movie, but decide to nit-pick through TLW for some reason. Perhaps they do that because a modestly-budgeted film like this hasn't been over-hyped? Some people need to be dazzled by excessive marketing in order to feel as though nit-picking should be skipped...

Is it me or is Ron Perlman the long-lost twin-brother of Tom Waits?...