As far as he knows, Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the only remaining human in a world destroyed by a plague of vampirism. Each night, a horde of the bloodsucking creatures gathers around his fortified house and cry out in hunger for the man inside. Morgan waits through the night and, when dawn comes, his daily routine begins.
He shops for canned goods at the empty grocery store. He selects a new car to replace the one damaged by the vampires. He broadcasts a plea for other human voices on a short-wave radio. He piles dead bodies into his station wagon and transports them to an open fire pit. Then, with his “chores” done, Morgan continues his systematic search of the city-- finding weakened vampires lurking in dark rooms and driving homemade stakes through their hearts.
This first adaptation of Richard Matheson’s terrifying 1954 novel I Am Legend was made in Italy on a shoestring budget. Price is the only English-language actor in the cast. But, despite its financial limitations, it remains an impressive work filled with compelling images. The scenes of the vampires pounding nightly on Morgan’s door foreshadow similar images in the better-known Night of the Living Dead (1968). There are also some genuinely frightening sequences, such as the one where Morgan falls asleep in a church, only to awake at sunset and struggle to reach the safety of his fortress home.
Some critics have carped that Price gives a hammy performance, but I don’t find that to be the case at all. In contrast, he comes across effectively as both driven and lonely. My favorite part of the film is the portrayal of Morgan’s daily routine, which Price describes in voiceover.Allegedly, Matheson was not pleased with this adaptation of his novel, even though he had a hand in the script (he had his screenplay credit changed to Logan Swanson). I think it’s easily the best version of his book, although two remakes were produced. In The Omega Man, Charlton Heston portrayed the last man on Earth, but he fights mutants created by biological warfare. After several failed attempts to produce a big-budget version in the 1990s (Arnold Schwarzenegger was attached at one time), Will Smith headlined 2007’s I Am Legend. It does retain some elements from the original, though the creatures are not technically vampires. For all its pricey special effects and action sequences, I don’t think it’s nearly as chilling as The Last Man on Earth.
