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Marketed in the U.S. under the title Jurassic Trash, this French film is an hommage to monster flicks of old, made on the cheap and played for laughs, with some clever bits but a "throw in anything that we can think of" philosophy that wears thin by the end. At a rural farm in the French countryside, characters including a grumpy, gun wielding farmer, his mad scientist son, a local deputy, a clown and his business partner, some sun bathers, some yokels, a Christian scout leader and a government inspector, all come face to face with a creature that seems to have hatched from prehistoric eggs. There's a rapid shift from character to character, some word puns that don't translate in the subtitles, lots of actors yelling and mugging, some topless scenes, minimal gore and some very cheap monster effects; if you're a fan of monster flicks and parodies of them, it will hit some fun, if familiar notes.

The Last Winter seems to be a conscious update of Peter Weir's The Last Wave, both with themes of humans cracking under the strain of an environmental crisis. This doesn't cover substantially new territory, but succeeds in an atmosphere of dread, and events that leave you guessing: is the crew suffering from gas exposure? Hallucinations? Is a dark spirit from the Inuit mythology to blame? LW does a nice job of balancing these possibilities, letting you be the judge. Ron Perlman is good as the gruff, by the book boss who looks after his crew, James LeGros is a very serious environmentalist who is no more ready than the others for events that defy his rational mind, and several of the other characters, while needing a bit more depth, do good work with what they have. The film has been criticized for a rather vague ending, usually from the people who always want a big rubbery monster to show up and then get conveniently killed, resolving everything in an instantly forgettable climax. But, if you care to exercise that brain behind your eyes, you may find the questions of Last Winter lingering long after explosions and FX are forgotten.