Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.0

The Last Winter Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 13, 2015

Note: This title is currently available as part of The Larry Fessenden Collection.

You might think Larry Fessenden would be better known as a director, given the fact that entries in his filmography bear such iconic titles as Jaws, A Face in the Crowd and Chinatown . Of course Steven Spielberg, Elia Kazan and Roman Polanski might prefer to have someone pointing out the fact that Fessenden’s films with those titles are not the “famous” ones, so to speak, so there’s that. Fessenden has carved an interesting niche for himself as an indie horror meister, while also frequently appearing as an actor in not only his own films, but those by such iconic names as Martin Scorsese (Bringing Out the Dead) and Neil Jordan (The Brave One). Fessenden might seem like a somewhat odd subject for a “career retrospective” of sorts like the new four disc set from Scream Factory which assembles Fessenden’s films from a fifteen year span (give or take) bridging the 1990s to the 2000s. Fessenden may exploit an unabashedly (and unapologetically) lo-fi ambience in many of his films, but he’s also an (at times at least) unusually intelligent writer of horror. While each of these films has its own hurdles to overcome (as even Fessenden admits in his charmingly self deprecating commentaries), this set also provides an interesting example of an independent filmmaker growing and becoming more and more technically competent as his career progresses. There's at least some thematic consistency in play between these quite disparate films, including a recurrence of the traditional horror staple that Mother Nature doesn't take kindly to humans not respecting her enough.

While in many ways The Last Winter is Fessenden’s most assured achievement from a technical perspective of the four films found in The Larry Fessenden Collection, it echoes themes and ideas already covered in at least two of the quartet, namely No Telling and Wendigo, though the film’s passing obfuscations and ambiguities perhaps also point to Habit’s similarly quasi-hallucinatory style where it’s not always clear what is reality and what is “merely” perception. The Last Winter continues Fessenden’s self-admitted obsession with environmental issues, and once again shows a mendacious Mankind rapaciously cutting a swath through an environment without much regard for the consequences. Corporate greed and Mother Nature’s own defensive proclivities also play into this frostbitten thriller set in the Anwar region (the Arctic National Wildlife Region).

Fessenden sets up the weirdly claustrophobic lives of those who choose to live and/or work in isolated arctic areas where a flat snowy vista is about all the can be seen, when anything can be seen through the blinding snow, in a realistic detail that may remind some of the recent documentary Antarctica: A Year on Ice . Ed Pollack (Ron Perlman) is a no nonsense engineer type tasked with manning a drilling base in this sequestered area, working for a weird coalition that includes both governmental and corporate interests (in one of Fessenden’s paranoid tips of the hat the military industrial complex). KIK Oil has perhaps cynically attempted to court public opinion good will by allowing a team of environmentalists to explore the environmental impact of the drilling, including James Hoffman (James LeGros) and Elliott Jenkins (Jamie Harrold). When strange things begin happening, including peril for some workers, Hoffman is convinced there’s an environmental reason for it all, while Pollack remains skeptical.

The Last Winter plays like a patently odd mash up of The Thing and Where the Green Ants Dream (can it be mere coincidence that Werner Herzog’s Lessons of Darkness shows up briefly in clip form?), with a stranded set of workers in a frosty environment struggling to deal with the impact of “progress” on a primal region with a perhaps supernatural protector. Fessenden finally allows some real ambiguity to persevere through to the at least somewhat enigmatic ending of this piece, but it’s fair to say Fessenden’s opinion of Man’s relationship with his planet and the environment may be fairly apocalyptic.

The Last Winter Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Last Winter is presented on Blu-ray by IFC Midnight and Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is by and large the best looking presentation found in The Larry Fessenden Collection, no doubt due to the recent vintage of the film, the fact that it was shot on 35mm and perhaps also at least partially attributable to the fact that it's new enough to have had a digital intermediate. While the palette is somewhat tamped down throughout the film, tending toward an almost hospital-like greenish tint at times, detail and fine detail remain strong throughout the presentation, especially in close-ups. Gradations of white are also handled well, with little to no banding in evidence. Some of the second unit photography of wide open Alaskan vistas offer stunning depth of field if admittedly not much in the way of fine detail.

The Last Winter Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Last Winter's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix does a good job of evoking both the barren out of doors ambience of several scenes in the film, but also the cloistered, claustrophobic confines the characters find themselves in when they're inside. This film has a few more source cues than are generally present in some of the other films in The Larry Fessenden Collection, and those spill through the surround channels quite winningly. Dialogue and effects are rendered cleanly and clearly and offer excellent prioritization. There is also a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix included on this Blu-ray as an option.

The Last Winter Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Last Winter (1080i; 1:46:52) is a very in-depth piece on the film, looking at aspects like the location shoot (an early subtitle incorrectly identifies Prudhoe Bay as Pudhoe Bay).


• Archival Footage (2005) (1080p; 18:31) also features a contemporary introduction by Larry Fessenden.


• Short Film: Origins (1080p; 7:54) also contains a Fessenden intro.


• Short Film: Jebediah (1080p; 2:33)


• Short Film: Mister (1080p; 5:31)


• Music Video: Tired of Killing Myself (1080p; 5:36)


• 2015 Interview with Larry Fessenden (1080p; 22:22) is commendably not from the same session that provided the introductions on many of the supplements scattered throughout the four discs of The Larry Fessenden Collection, and features Fessenden discussing several aspects of his career.


• Glass Eye Pix Sizzle Reel (2014) (1080p; 4:12) contains a Fessenden intro.


• Audio Commentary with Co-Writer//Director/Producer/Editor Larry Fessenden. Fessenden gets into some of the nuts and bolts of the difficult location shoot (in both Iceland and Alaska), as well as interesting anecdotal information like how he cast several roles over the telephone.

The Last Winter Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fessenden has assembled one of his most impressive casts for The Last Winter, and they deliver good performances in what is in some ways a surprisingly rote thriller that recycles ideas not just from Fessenden's own oeuvre, but a few other hoary films as well. The Last Winter may be a bit too screed like for its own good, but it's also uniquely unsettling and has a nicely disturbing vibe running through its perhaps too predictable tale. Technical merits are generally strong, the supplementary package is very enjoyable, and The Last Winter comes Recommended.