The Last Winter

The Last Winter is a 2006 horror film directed by Larry Fessenden. The Last Winter premiered in The Contemporary World Cinema Programme at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2006. The script for the film originally featured a more woodsy Alaska with pine trees and it was after a research trip to Prudhoe Bay that they discovered the harsh flat conditions that ultimately ended up in the film. Plot The American oil company KIK Corporation is building an ice road to explore the remote northern Arctic National Wildlife Refuge seeking energy independence. Independent environmentalists work together in a drilling base headed by the tough Ed Pollack in a sort of agreement with the government, approving procedures and sending reports of the operation. A friendly football game outside of the housing area is interrupted when environmental scientist Elliot accidentally collides with rookie oil worker Maxwell, resulting in Elliot getting a bloody nose. That night, Maxwell is disturbed by sighting a spectral herd of Caribou charging past the camp; the eerie sight of the ghostly animals unnerves him. The next day, Maxwell is dispatched to check on one of the sites the drilling team is working on and mysteriously goes missing for most of the day. He stumbles back to camp that night traumatized, just as the others are about to head out into wastes to look for him, claiming that his radio had been not working. Maxwell gets into an angry confrontation with environmental scientist James Hoffman, admitting that he didn't want to work on the oil site but his father, a friend of Pollack, thought it would be good for him; Maxwell states that he "saw something" out in the snow and demands that Hoffman, who has repeatedly been raising the alarm about drilling in the area due to the extremely warm (for Alaska) temperature, tell the public. That night, Maxwell, still partly delirious, strips naked and ventures out with a video camera, intending to document the paranormal phenomena. He captures the spectral herd of Caribou passing on camera before something strikes him from behind. When he is found dead out on the snow the next morning, Hoffman suspects that sour gas (natural gas containing hydrogen sulfide) may have been leaked out as a result of runaway climate change (arctic methane release). The sour gas might then be provoking hallucinations and insanity in the group.