The Last Winter

Larry Fessenden's eco-twist on the ghost story is set in the isolation of an Arctic oil company outpost. The atmosphere evokes John Carpenter's "The Thing," a team surrounded by a frozen desert where storms whip up out of nowhere and something seemingly alien is out there trying to get to them. "The corpses of animals and plants from millions of years ago," is how environmental scientist James LeGros describes oil. He may also have pegged the source of the angry spirits of the Earth rising to stop the destruction. Ron Perlman (Hellboy himself, sans makeup) is excellent as the company man invested in the culture of oil, but also dedicated to protecting all the people on his team as they come under assault for simply drifting into madness. It's Fessenden's biggest and most visually evocative production to date, and the marriage of environmentalist and animist themes makes for a resonant (and very timely) horror film. Connie Britton, Zach Gilford and Kevin Corrigan co-star. The DVD features commentary by Fessenden and the feature-length "The Making of The Last Winter," a rather impressionistic survey of the production followed by deleted scenes and a video interview with Fessenden.