Aside from the principal cast of Laurence Fishburne, Bill Paxton and Kevin Zegers, not much was revealed about The Colony while it was shooting in Toronto last year. We had sketchy intel that it was something to do with feral cannibals in an ice age, but now with the arrival of the first international trailer, we can start to colour in some details.

So yes, we are indeed in a future world where weather manipulation towers have failed to prevent global catastrophe in the form of snow that never stopped. A lucky few have managed to scratch an existence in bunkers, while the unlucky remainder, it seems, have regressed to animalistic madness. When our guys get a distress call from another outpost, they undertake their first expedition above ground in what looks like some time. And, natch, they don't much like what they find.

Fishburne and Paxton, on this evidence, are very much playing characters they've played before - Fishburne a stoic leader, Paxton a whiner - and the set-up can't help but put us in mind of similar last-survivor movies from days past (there's a bit where Paxton all but says, "They're coming outta the goddamn walls!"). If you were being negative, you might say The Colony looks like it's been built out of other films, but if you were of a more generous nature, you might be optimistic for some solid sci-fi thrills. It looks familiar, but comfortably so.

The director is Jeff Renfroe, who previously made the horror mystery One Point 0 with Udo Kier, Lance Henriksen and Bruce Payne, and edited the thoroughly wonderful Anvil!. He also had a hand in the screenplay. We don't have a UK release date yet, but The Colony opens in Canada on April 12.