The Last Winter (2006)

So, here we are again. A little while back, I covered the film Wendigo and was so impressed by its craft and literary qualities that I immediately pegged Larry Fessenden as a director I could trust. It's no surprise, then, that I've been eagerly awaiting sitting down with another one of his films, and the particular film I've chosen to look at today is The Last Winter, a film that came out several years after Wendigo and sees Fessenden at something of an artistic peak. Here, his storytelling abilities have matured, both his writing and direction, and everything feels a bit more surefooted. True, some of the intimacy of Wendigo is lost, but this is also a totally different beast, if you'll pardon the expression, and a much bleaker experience overall. I guess you could consider it tragic, but only in a cosmic sense, as this film looks straight down the barrel of one of the most pressing issues today and doesn't flinch.

You see, this is ecological horror. At first, it seems almost like a low-budget take on John Carpenter's The Thing, but in all actuality, that's mostly an aesthetic similarity. We follow a bunch of average joes stationed in the relative tundra of Alaska, tasked with investigating whether or not the environment can support an oil drilling operation, and a variety of interpersonal tensions threaten to spiral out of control as everyone becomes more isolated and paranoid. So you can see why people would consider the two similar, but it still feels like a stretch to me.

What this really is is something closer to a more intelligent take on M. Night Shyamalan's infamous The Happening, from its themes to the way that the Earth takes its revenge by driving its inhabitants to suicide. This is not a bad thing; quite the contrary really. This is an enigmatic horror film, and it makes great use of a depressing issue, drawing endless horror from staring into the abyss of human inaction. It's got a lot of depth, and doesn't exist to give any tangible answers; instead, it raises interesting questions, in the hopes of keeping you up at night thinking about how we're killing our planet.

The basic building blocks of horror are here, done up the way I've come to expect from a Larry Fessenden joint. I mentioned interpersonal conflict earlier, and that's one of his true signatures for a reason. Yes, most of this film is people talking to one another, interrupted occasionally by an insane setpiece or a blast of upsetting violence, but that's what makes it so great. It succeeds on the strength of its spooky ideas, its masterful construction that builds tension and atmosphere deftly, and a variety of excellent performances from its enthusiastic cast. And like Wendigo, this film excels at creating an ambiguous horror narrative where we don't ever quite get the full picture of what's happening. As things start going sour, we have many reasons to question if what we're seeing is real or if what we're seeing is what the characters are seeing, given that many contradictory events seem to take place. Every scrap becomes important, and each second is gripping. If any of you have played The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan before, imagine that story with actual subtext and a much older cast of characters and you pretty much have some idea of what to expect from The Last Winter. In any case, it makes for a wild horror ride that can be a bit disorienting, but ultimately succeeds at creating something of a narrative puzzle box for fans to pour over.

It's too bad, then, that the film's low budget really ends up creating problems in the final ten minutes or so of the film. I mean, a red flag was raised when a big dramatic event in the middle of the story showcased some pretty awful CGI destruction, but hey: they did the best they could (I suppose,) and at least I was gripped by the story at that point. But as the climax unfolds, any illusion that The Last Winter was made by a big studio is immediately dispelled by the Asylum-level CG creatures that take over in the final moments of the film. Luckily, these creatures are probably meant to be a hallucination in the context of the film's story, but I don't see how you could use that to excuse how poorly animated and laughably unconvincing they look. After this bit, the film ends properly with a neat little two-minute sequence at the end, but for a while there, The Last Winter came dangerously close to losing itself in its computer-generated mayhem.

Still, the film is mostly phenomenal. Nightmarish, rooted in real-world paranoia, and brought to life by incredibly talented filmmakers and performers, The Last Winter is a horror film that's hard to shake off, even though its clumsy climax gives one an easy out to dismiss the whole thing. Personally, I find it easy to forget when everything around it was so stellar. Larry Fessenden proves that he really does have a unique voice in the crowded horror genre that deserves to be highlighted and celebrated. It's thought-provoking, and just plain provocative in general, but I think it deftly avoids being preachy while also avoiding bastardizing the whole issue to make for a more easily-digestible horror film. And it isn't one of those arty horror films where very little actually happens in the story. for those of you who hate that sort of thing. If you're willing to forgive a few really bad special effects, and don't mind a more genuinely depressing horror film, The Last Winter is an easy recommend.