"The Last Winter" is a gripping psychological thriller from indie-horror maverick Larry Fessenden ("Wendigo," "Habit"). The harrowing tale of an Alaskan oil-dredging expedition gone mysteriously awry, the film mines timely, very real fears for classic chills - a grown-up ghost story for our ecologically unstable times.

In one of the most pristine landscapes in the world, a team working to exploit Alaska's oil reserves begins to encounter troubling delays. Scientist and outside observer Hoffman (LeGros) warns of unseasonably warm temperatures and disruptive atmospheric changes, but gruff team leader Pollack (Perlman) presses on with the mission, even as crewmembers become strangely afflicted. Disdainful of Hoffman, who's also begun an affair with his ex, Abby (Britton), Pollack moves to have him relocated, but not before a cataclysmic accident leaves the whole crew exposed to the elements. With sanity and survival hanging in the balance, Pollack and Hoffman are forced to journey together for help - racing against darkness and deadly cold, haunted by demons that have risen from within.

Evoking the stark terrain of John Carpenter's "The Thing," Fessenden urgently explores the frightful consequences of man's disruption of the natural world - mother nature's coming wrath in the era of global warming. Distinguished from the current glut of splat-pack diversions, "The Last Winter" is an intense and soulful work of true horror, with unshakable images and compelling performances by its ensemble cast.