Last County – Blood in the Snow 2023

An alcoholic woman has to deal with home-invading drug dealers and crooked cops in Last County. Abby Gardner (Kaelen Ohm) has separated from her husband Brian (Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll), due to her alcoholism, and she has relocated to her family’s house near a small town. Without warning, Abby is taken hostage by drug dealer Bennett (Gord Rand) and his gravely injured partner Diego (David Chinchilla). Abby manages to knock Bennett out and call the police, however, it turns out that Sheriff Bill McLean (Nicholas Campbell) is corrupt and he and his deputies, including Lee Hargood (Pedro Miguel Arce), Frank Wiley (Josh Cruddas), Larry Tucker (Benjamin Blais), and Ryan Devlin (Dayton Sinkia), storm the house to acquire a bag of money Bennett is carrying.

Last County Synopsis

Last County is a home invasion siege thriller and the feature film debut of director Barret Mulholland. The film stars Kaelen Ohm (From) as Abby Gardner, who in the opening scene gets into a drunk driving accident, endangering the safety of her daughter Grace (Antonina Battrick). Three months later, Abby finds herself separated from her marriage and living an isolated existence in the middle of nowhere. However, Abby has to fight back when she finds herself in the middle of a conflict between a couple of drug dealers and the town’s corrupt cops.

My Thoughts on Last County

Despite being relatively well-produced, the main issue I had with Last County, other than being the typical Canadian film that pretends to be set in America, is that the film is quite inconsistent tonally. While the film is technically a thriller, there are many moments of the film that are obviously played out for laughs, such as the Sheriff’s deputies bringing him a Frappuccino before attempting to storm the house. Speaking of whom, the casting of legendary Canadian character actor Nicolas Campbell (The Dead Zone, DaVinci’s Inquest, Backcountry) as the antagonistic Bill McLean is one of the constant bright spots in an otherwise uneven film.