The Last Winter is a 2006 thriller film directed by Larry Fessenden. The Last Winter premiered at the Contemporary World Cinema Program at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2006. The film’s original script called for a pine-covered Alaska, and after a research trip to Prudhoe Bay, they discovered the harsh conditions of the flatlands that eventually made it into the film.[3] The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, praising its tension and character dynamics.
The American oil company K.I.K. Corporation is building an ice road to explore the remote Arctic Wildlife Refuge, seeking energy independence. Independent environmentalists work together at a drilling base headed by hard-line Ed Pollack in a sort of government deal, approving procedures and submitting reports on operations. A friendly soccer game outside the camp is interrupted when environmental scientist Elliot accidentally collides with novice oil worker Maxwell, causing Elliot to get a bloody nose. That night, Maxwell is disturbed by the sight of a ghostly herd of reindeer charging through camp; the strange sight of ghostly animals unsettles him.
The next day, Maxwell is sent to check out one of the sites where the drilling crew is working and suddenly goes missing for most of the day. He stumbles back to camp that night in a panic, just as the others prepare to go into the wilderness to find him, claiming that his radio is not working – Hoffman checks the radio, which records that Maxwell has walked 300 miles. Maxwell has an angry confrontation with environmental scientist James Hoffman, admitting that he did not want to work at the oil site but that his father, a friend of Pollack’s, thought it would be good for him; Maxwell said he “saw something” beyond the snow and asked Hoffman, who had repeatedly raised the alarm about drilling in the area due to the extremely warm (for Alaska) temperatures, to tell the public.
That night, Maxwell, still delirious, stripped down and ventured outside with a video camera, intending to record the paranormal phenomenon. He managed to capture the ghostly caribou herd walking in front of the camera before something hit him from behind. When he was found dead in the snow the next morning, Hoffman suspected that sour gas (natural gas containing hydrogen sulfide) may have been released due to out-of-control climate change (releases of Arctic methane). The sour gas could then have caused hallucinations and insanity among the group.
Elliot, Hoffman’s partner, attempted to email the outside world but failed to receive a signal; he died shortly thereafter, possibly from a brain aneurysm. Hoffman had refused to sign a permit to bring in heavy equipment to help move the drilling rig due to the potential damage to the tundra earlier in the film; Pollack and his boss, Foster, arranged for Hoffman to be replaced later. Hoffman convinced Ed to accompany the group to the hospital for a checkup after Elliot died; however, the passenger plane that came to pick them up crashed into their building, severely damaging it. Gary, the pilot, and the replacement environmental scientist, Marshowitz, were both killed in the crash; Foster was severely burned but survived the night before dying.
