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Director: Larry Fessenden Writers: Larry Fessenden, Robert Leaver Starring: Ron Perlman, James LeGros, Connie Britton Ron Perlman is a pretty badass guy. I appreciate that a man that ugly can get so many cool movie roles. So you’ll understand why I decided to watch The Last Winter, which stars Hellboy himself. The premise is fairly straightforward: an oil company has been given permission to drill in the Alaskan National Wildlife Preserve, in a sense breaching the last unspoiled piece of wilderness in the US. The lead scientist, or whatever he is, objects, stating that the drilling is melting the permafrost. One by one, the members of the team start to go crazy. They start dying and…blah blah blah. Blah! This is pretty well-worn territory. “Slow burn” horror movies - those movies where the viewer is slowly filled with an overwhelming sense of dread, instead of being bombarded by horrific imagery - are a dime a dozen these days. If you’re in any way versed in the independent horror films of the past decade, you’ve seen this type of film before. We’re introduced to the characters, something happens to reveal to the viewer that something is not quite right, bad stuff happens, etc. The problem with The Last Winter is that none of it is interesting. The entire movie is telegraphed from the first minute. These people are messing with nature. It’s a safe bet that nature is going to fight back. Are we supposed to be terrified, then, when it finally happens? There’s another problem: the acting. Ron Perlman definitely knows what he’s doing here, and that’s the problem. No one else in the film does. The difference in the perfomances between the star and his support is jarring, to say the least. The final nail in the coffin: terrible CGI. I get that the film was probably shot with a shoe-string budget, but if you can’t pull off a convincing element, especially when that element is the “big reveal” of your film, don’t bother. Use make-up effects, stop-motion, or anything but CGI. The CGI in the last few scenes of the film was clearly meant to terrify. Instead it illicits laughs - clearly, not what you want to do in a horror film. Indie horror films can be done on the cheap with terrifying special effects. A recent DVD release, Outpost, successfully presents zombie Nazis using only make-up and creepy lighting. I mean, The Last Winter already had a desolate, snowy setting. Get a dude in a suit and obscure him with snow! The credits claim the film was written, edited, and a directed by the same guy, Larry Fessenden. Larry, I’d suggest getting a few extra thousand bucks for your next film and hiring other people to lend a hand. You’re not the jack-of-all-trades you think you are. Pros: Ron Perlman being Ron Perlman Cons: Too long, predictable, lovely CGI Rating: 2/5 Rabid Koala fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Aug 7, 2008 |
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Aug 7, 2008 03:51
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 01:44 |
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I guess I came into this expecting a modern version of The Thing but was sorely disappointed overall. That being said, it's still worth a watch because it shows promise and I think the director could do great things in the future if he learns from his mistakes here. The Last Winter starts out with a somewhat promising set of scenery shots and a haunting score. The main character is not Ron Perlman as the box art and other promotional material would suggest but this is fine because Perlman is hamming it up like a madman here. It's hard to blame him, he's doing his best with the bizarre dialogue. To me the weakest part of the film is definitely the script. I'd love to have a look at the original(I suspect this is the original without any rewrites) because it seems like an alien penned it. Characters have unbelievable reactions to events that transpire in the movie to the point of tedium. Perlman is given some truly terrible lines especially and his characters mannerisms don't seem to jive with anything else about him. What makes this movie so frustrating is that it could've been really good with a few changes. The movie's score is very well done and fits the setting well, the sets were decent and the CGI was weak but serviceable. I'm giving it a 2/5 but I don't regret watching it, I just regret that it could've easily been a 4 with a bigger budget, script rewrite and some retooling. Rating: 2/5
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Aug 7, 2008 14:24
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The Last Winter suffers from a number of problems: a terrible script, poor acting, bad CGI...but the main issue that bothered me most is that the "creepy things" that happen seem completely random, and even with the big reveal at the end, many still make no sense. The characters reaction to them is even more bizarre. For instance: They drag the dead body of the boy back to the camp, and then DUN DUN DUN, it disappears. Ok, kinda creepy except they never explain why it disappeared, the characters stop mentioning it, and it never comes back into the story at all. Overall just poorly written and executed. 1/5
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Aug 7, 2008 14:48
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