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Last Winter, The
IFC Films
 |
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FILM:
MPAA RATING:
Starring
Ron Perlman,
James LeGros,
Connie Britton,
Kevin Corrigan,
Jamie Harrold,
Pato Hoffmann,
Zach Gilford,
and
Joanne Shenandoah
In one of the most pristine landscapes in the world, a team working to exploit Alaska's oil resources is tormented by an unseen evil. After one crew member is found dead, disorientation slowly claims the sanity of the other members of the team as each of them succumbs to an unknown fear. This creeping dread bursts open when a malevolent wind brings down a plane that approaches the station. Explosions and carnage wreak havoc on the team, and all functions fail in the camp, forcing two of the members out into the cold on a desperate bid for survival. As these two journey to find help, they find themselves utterly alone in a world that is unraveling--either they are being stalked by an invisible herd of menacing phantoms, or they are going mad. (IFC Films)
| GENRE(S): |
Horror
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Suspense/Thriller
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| WRITTEN BY: |
Robert Leaver
Larry Fessenden
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| DIRECTED BY: |
Larry Fessenden
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| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: July 22, 2008
Theatrical: September 21, 2007
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| RUNNING TIME: |
101 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
90
Village Voice
Nathan Lee
It's the imaginative background, and Fessenden's talent at insinuating it into the action, that counts--and unnerves--in this most chilling of global-warming movies.
90
LA Weekly
Scott Foundas
The Last Winter won’t win many fans among those who place the saving of union jobs above the repairing of the ozone layer. But this is a horror movie with many inconvenient truths to tell about the ways in which we are willingly destroying our planet.
90
Los Angeles Times
Carina Chocano
It's billed as an environmental horror story, but The Last Winter bears all the hallmarks of an ever-popular genre that has always pitted science, technology and reason against emotion, awe and nature. It bears all the hallmarks of the gothic: ghosts, death, alienated sexuality, decay, secrets, madness and, of course, awe and trepidation in the face of the sublime power of nature.
88
Premiere
Aaron Hillis
A richly drawn, ambitious character piece both socially relevant and genuinely suspenseful.
80
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
Gruesome and terrifying things happen in The Last Winter, but there's no gratuitous gore or torture, and the film's real power comes from its building sense that something really, really bad is ABOUT to happen.
75
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
And if the film's 11th-hour CGI effects aren't entirely convincing, the notion that oil itself is haunted by the restless spirit of every once-living thing that time reduced and mingled into the earth's black blood throws off a primordial chill.
75
New York Post
V.A. Musetto
While the slow buildup won't bowl 'em over at suburban multiplexes, the film should please Fessenden's loyal followers and win him new ones.
75
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
The Last Winter sounds like a genre-movie platypus - a little bit of this, a little piece of that - but it stops short of laying an egg. In fact, it works eerily well.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
Succeeds royally at building a sense of apocalyptic dread. It isn't quite so successful at sustaining that mood, and Fessenden resorts to blurry images of totemic spirit forces and stampeding moose specters to get where he's going. And where exactly is that?
To a place designed to scare the bejesus out of us planet-pillaging consumers.
75
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Who said that an environmental horror film couldn't be didactic and spooky at the same time?
70
The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
Something wicked this way comes in the nifty horror film The Last Winter, crawling through the hallways and howling into the dread night.
70
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
Like his "Wendigo," the film has a lot of mumbo jumbo about ancient spirits revived and angered by human disrespect--the old Indian-graveyard paradigm, as clunky as ever. But the context is overpoweringly eerie.
70
Variety
Dennis Harvey
An imperfect but compelling thriller.
60
The Hollywood Reporter
John DeFore
The long buildup is too deliberate to please the mainstream horror crowd, and the finale might alienate more niche audiences, but in between there's a good bit to savor.
50
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Noel Murray
The Last Winter's heart is in the right place, but it isn't pumping any blood.
38
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
Among cautionary tales of gloom-and-doom, it may out-gore Gore, but it doesn't entertain.
25
San Francisco Chronicle
David Wiegand
The film isn't very interesting because it isn't well made.
 The average user rating for this movie is 5.3 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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