Film is Pwn

The Last Man on Earth is a classic, low budget, 60s movie based on the novel “I Am Legend” by Richard Matheson.

The film begins with the inimitable Vincent Price as Dr. Robert Morgan, the sole survivor of a worldwide plague.  The only other inhabitants of the planet are undead in classic zombie fashion, though their symptoms reflect those of the vampires – they are repelled by sunlight, garlic; only killed by wooden stakes through the heart. 

We follow Price’s daily routine as he searches for the hiding places of the infected in the deserted, unnamed city he inhabits (the movie was filmed in Italy standing in for America), killing those he finds.  He restocks on gasoline and other supplies taking whatever he pleases from abandoned supermarkets.  By night Price hides in his fortified home as hordes of the infected pound at his door.

The Last Man on Earth, as fond as I am of it, suffers to an extent from its choice to tell the story in nonlinear fashion.  It begins with the last man on earth fighting the infected; then we flash back to the discovery of the disease, the plague sweeping the world and Price’s family, Price refusing to let his wife’s body be destroyed after she dies, and then the shocking return from the grave of Price’s wife; then back to the conclusion of the plight of Price.

Now, the proverbial “money shot” that would have likely taken viewers by total surprise is the sight of Price’s wife returning home after she’d been secretly buried (in defiance of the order that all infected bodies be burned).  Since we’d already sat through a half-an-hour of undead people lurching about trying to get at Price, we all expected what would happen during the flashback.  But, if the story had been told beginning with the discovery of the plague, the moment would have been a wonderful shock rather than an expected surprise (which is an oxymoron if there ever was one).

The same novel was remade only seven years later as Omega Man starring the great Charlton Heston and in 2007 starring Will Smith keeping the book’s title I Am Legend.  (With apologies to Richard Matheson, based solely on intrigue value, I’d rank The Last Man on Earth as the preeminent title of the three.  Omega Man sounds like an 80s arcade game and I Am Legend sounds like a self-promotional handbook.)

Vincent Price is ideal for the tortured, solitary scientist.  This is an actor born to brood, much more so than his more magnetic, charming successors, Heston and Smith.  Seeing the single most charismatic actor of the last two decades, Will Smith, give a performance that simmered with melancholy feels as though you are being deprived of your entertainment dollar.  Who wants to pay to see Will Smith sulk?  That’s what Sean Penn is for. 

The Charlton Heston interpretation Omega Man suffers from general 70s cheesiness, with the zombipires wearing hoods and facepaint like some sort of sinister monk rock band.  Omega Man far exceeds The Last Man on Earth in terms of

(Ahead there be Spoilers!) The end of Mathieson’s novel has the chilling conclusion that the lone human realizes that the undead, infected have become the new normal, and he, the human, is in fact the monster that is killing them.  Heston’s Omega Man and Smith’s I Am Legend have much more Hollywood endings, with the hero dying for the chance to salvage humanity.  The Price version, The Last Man on Earth, has an ending that is truer to the original ending. 

Is the Last Man on Earth a perfect movie?  Far from it.  The “monsters” lack a distinct menace and the inimitable Vincent Price’s supporting cast is passable at best.  Still, I hold it as the finest of the adaptations of “I Am Legend” well worth seeing.

–Lawrence Oso