Unduly deprived of a theatrical release in Canada, Larry Fessenden’s eerie and inventive eco-apocalypse thriller about weird goings-on at an arctic drilling base could be the most unfairly underappreciated American movie in recent years.

The kind folks at Innis College’s Free Friday Films series do their bit to expand its cult of admirers with a Dec. 5 screening, its first in Toronto since it played TIFF in ’06. (Eye Weekly’s own Adam Nayman serves as presenter.)  The movie’s return also provides another opportunity to relish one of Ron Perlman’s most testosterone-fuelled performances as a gung-ho oilman. James LeGros is equally strong as the more sensitive-minded scientist who sees a connection between the freaky weather conditions and the increasingly freaky behaviour of his base-mates. Amplifying the frigid dread at the heart of John Carpenter’s similarly snowy remake of The Thing, Fessenden has crafted an avowedly contemporary horror film that expertly exploits anxieties of both the environmental and existential varieties. Catch it before it slips back into the deep freeze.