THE OMEGA MAN
Starring Charlton Heston's creepy smile
I'd seen this one, long ago, and had forgotten most of it. My interest in rewatching it was kindled by reading I Am Legend. And no, it's not a very faithful adaptation. But it keeps and expands on some of the book's most interesting ideas, even while abandoning other interesting ones and finding some relatively dull territory.
You can tell it's not a faithful adaptation when we're introduced to Neville, and he's listening to JAZZ!!!!! Everybody knows he listens to classical : P
There're no vampires here - just light-fearing albinos who dress up in sinister black cowls and wear mirrored sunglasses when they come out at night. They're The Family, a legion of the infected who want to remake the world in their image and cleanse away the remnants of the technological past. (hey, I finally know what "creature of the wheel" means)
And this is the strongest aspect of the film, especially their leader Matthias, wonderfully played by Anthony Zerbe. He never seems like a madman, he never seems genuinely malicious - he's just a dangerous, powerful man whose goals are at odds with Neville's. After all, The Family has as much reason to fear him as he does to fear them.
Neville meets some other survivors here, and that's the least successful aspect of the film. None of them are very interesting, and they only serve to take Neville away from where he should be - contending with the world's latest creatures of the night. We never get to see Neville really dealing with the situation he's in - he talks to himself a little, and entertains himself by going to see Woodstock (Charlton Heston enjoying a movie with hippies, hippies, hippies?),but we never really get a sense of his isolation and terror.
Nevertheless, the locations are all good, and the world shown in this film is very convincingly vacated by human inhabitation. The ending, despite some really ridiculous Christ imagery, is quite good, and wouldn't make it to the final cut if the film were made today, I'll bet. And this movie's got a surprising amount of violence and nudity for a PG flick.