lastmanonearth

This U.S. / Italian co-production was based on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend , and it's basically a post-nuke movie. A strange airborne virus has overtaken the world, killing most people, and turning the rest into bloodthirsty vampires ( although they're actually more akin to Night of the Living Dead style zombies, than your average Bela Lugosi style vamp). The last man left alive is a rather poncy guy by the name of Morgan. Morgan is played by the hopelessly miscast Vincent Price.

Before and during the great plague , Morgan was a scientist working on a cure for the whole thing. He never got sick , because he tells us in a throwaway line that he was once bitten by a bat and it made him immune. I was actually hoping the movie would take a ridiculous turn at this point, and he'd tell us that he now has the superpowers of a bat. Still, I suppose those super powers wouldn't amount to much more than eating insects and making loud squeaking noises ( though the more I think about it, watching Vincent Price do these things would have made for a funny movie). He now lives in a barricaded cottage with garlic and crosses on the doors.

Every night Morgan kicks back in his easy chair, gets plastered on cheap wine, listens to incredibly fruity classical music, and watches home movies of his dead wife and daughter whilst laughing maniacally to himself (which gives us a pretty clear idea about the state of his mental health). All the while , dozens of Vampires mill around the outside of the house moaning for his blood. They arent too bright though , and can't seem to figure out that they could get to him through the roof by just removing a couple of tiles , or even through one of the weakly boarded windows.

By day Morgan cruises around in his station wagon looking for the resting places of the undead. He mercilessly stakes them and throws the corpses into a huge smouldering pit. The good scientist has been enjoying this sweet insanity for three years until he starts finding the bodies of staked Vampires that he didn't kill. Although he doesn't seem to be the brightest scientist ever, it doesn't take him long to figure out that there must be other survivors, and he decides that he has to find them.

This is probably a much better cinematic version of Matheson's novel than The Omega Man (largely due to the lack of ridiculous afros and seventies fashions) , but Vincent Price is badly miscast in the lead role. I like old Vince as much as the next guy ( especially in The House of Wax , and The Fly) , but watching the cultured old chap engaging in fisticuffs with the undead was more laughable than convincing.... still , atmosphere and storywise, this was a pretty good horror/post-nuke movie.

It was a pretty visually impressive movie , especially since it was so obviously shot on a next to nothing budget. It made use of a whole lot of great deserted locations. They did make the mistake of constantly re-using the same piece of stock footage of Morgan driving down a deserted highway with a stern look on his face. It became obvious that it was the same footage after the second time they used it , and then they used it a few more times. There wasn't as much vampire staking action as I had hoped , and mainly consisted of bloodsuckers being staked as they slept. But if you're looking for a new post-nuke , vampire movie , or zombie flick , this is all three genres rolled into one, so you can't really ask for much more than that.