The Last Man on Earth

The Last Man on Earth is a great film to watch alone. Horror veteran Vincent Price plays Dr. Robert Morgan, a desperate and lonely man who's left alone in an apocalyptic world; A world ruled by zombie-like vampires as a result of a widespread plague. These vampire zombies are highly reminiscent of George Romero's walking dead in Night of the Living Dead. Price does a remarkable job interacting with practically nothing. He's alone throughout the majority of the film. His performance largely carries this low budgeter. When you watch the movie alone, you really feel where his character is coming from and a sense of hopelessness is established. The Last Man on Earth is really a thought-provoking, creepy classic. I recommend it be watched with Charlton Heston's The Omega Man to see another take on the same story (both were based on Richard Matheson's "I Am Legend").

My goodness, this movie holds up well. First watched it some 5 years ago, watched it again tonight, and I am beginning to realize how influential it is. As observed by many other posters, many films/directors are in debt to this movie. The list would begin but not end with "Night of the Living Dead", "Omega Man", "28 Days Later", and "Day of the Dead". There is also that very good Australian (?) movie, "This Silent Earth." That is to only mention the good movies. Countless crappy movies also owe their profits to this woefully unknown gem. Sure, as a Vincent Price fan I am biased. But the quality of this movie - from the script to the photography to Price's glorious intonations - is hard to deny.

Richard Matheson's seminal sci-fi horror novel, "I Am Legend", published in 1954, is first and foremost, a character study, and any film producer must come to terms with that, if there is to be a successful adaptation from print to screen. The novel was adapted to screen in 1964 as "The Last Man On Earth"; producer Sidney Salkow, hampered by a tiny budget, intuitively did the best he could and came close to pulling it off! What Salkow did was convey the novel's mood, tone, atmosphere and plot in primitive fashion, crudely capturing the gist of the novel - that of one man, Robert Neville's confrontation with a horrendous existential dilemma - to be, himself, that is; or not to be, a plague- induced vampiric shell. While "TLMOE" was not entirely successful in translation, especially in the ending - co-scripter Matheson ultimately distanced himself from the final product - it nevertheless, clearly outshines a later, technically superior 1971 remake, "The Omega Man" in the aforementioned aspects. "The Omega Man", taken on it's own, is an interesting, entertaining film; but when referenced against the novel, falls flat on it's face. (Matheson himself stated that that film and his novel are two completely different animals.) In contrast, "TLMOE" fares much better when referenced: it shows that Morgan's (Neville's) battle is more with reactions within himself than with the vampires as a physical threat per se, as it becomes obvious that the vampires are slow-moving, dull-minded individually, and disorganized as a group, each instinctively and savagely interested only in HIS blood. Besides the perpetually nightmarish nuisance of the vampires, who have a collectively demoralizing effect on him, Morgan (Neville) must fight against the horror generated by the desolation and doom of a post-apocalyptic world, against the loneliness of being the last human on earth and against the agony of tragically losing his wife and daughter to the plague. In the final analysis, "The Last Man On Earth" could be likened to a series of crude, but brilliant brush-strokes of feeling-tones. As such it fully deserves cult-classic status.

When a plague devastates life on Earth, the population dies or becomes a sort of zombie living in the dark. Dr. Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the unique healthy survivor on the planet, having a routine life for his own survival: he kills the night creatures along the day and maintains the safety of his house, to be protected along the night. He misses his beloved wife and daughter, consumed by the outbreak, and he fights against his loneliness to maintain mentally sane. When Dr. Morgan finds the contaminated Ruth Collins (Franca Bettoia), he learns that there are other survivors. He uses his blood to heal Ruth and he becomes the last hope on Earth to help the other contaminated survivors. But the order of this new society is scary.

"The Last Man on Earth" is a frightening and dark view of the fate of mankind. In those years, the preoccupation with radiation and biological weapons due to the cold war leaded people to this type of fear and preoccupation; later with AIDS; and presently with the disease in chickens. Fortunately science has developed means to cure or at least avoid epidemic situation, but we do not know how far we might be from such sad end of mankind. Vincent Price has a great performance in this movie, particularly in the beginning of the insanity of his character showed when he sees a photo of his family. The screenplay is very well developed, but the violent conclusion is weird. I always thought that George A. Romero was the creator of the "zombies", because of his excellent 1968 "Night of Living Dead". But now I can see that the origin of these creatures was in "The Last Man on Earth".

When I was a teenager, the remake "The Omega Man" was a very successful film in the movie theaters. I had not had the chance to see the original movie, since "The Last Man on Earth" (and "The Omega Man") had not been released on VHS or DVD in Brazil. Fortunately a minor Brazilian distributor has just released "The Last Man on Earth" on DVD, giving me the chance to see this great unknown movie. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Mortos Que Matam" (Dead That Kill")

Obs: On 25 May 2008, I watched this great classic movie again.

On 15 March 2014, I saw this movie again.

This one seems to be less well known than others in Vincent Price's filmography -- possibly because the title makes it sound more like a romantic comedy.

In this first filmed version of Richard Matheson's superb short novel "I Am Legend", though, Price really shines in one of the best performances of his career. Far superior to its 1971 remake "The Omega Man" -- as if we needed yet another "Charlton Heston vs. the subhuman hordes" outing after "Khartoum" and "55 Days In Peking" -- the script follows Matheson's book almost scene-for-scene, but then, I think the author always wrote with one eye on the movie or TV rights.

Morgan (Vincent Price) is the only survivor of a worldwide plague that kills its victims, only to resurrect them as zombie vampires. (His own immunity was conferred by the bite of a vampire bat infected with a weaker version of the virus, when he was doing research in South America.) By day, he systematically searches out the plague victims and destroys them in the traditional Van Helsing manner, retreating to his fortified house when darkness falls and the vampires come out to play. Worst of all, his best friend Ben -- now a vampire -- is part of the crowd that nightly besieges his house, thirsting for his blood.

Unlike "The Omega Man", very little of this film is devoted to Morgan's one-man war against the vampires, who as others have noted have a kind of "Night Of The Living Dead" ambiance, minus the gore. Instead it focuses on his utter isolation, both physical and spiritual, his mission as an exterminating angel the only purpose now left to his life.

A large part of the movie is taken up by a flashback to three years previous, to the beginning of the plague, as his friend Ben arrives at a birthday party for Morgan's daughter bearing an armful of presents. Against the background of the children's shouts and laughter the adults worriedly discuss the appearance of a new virus. The world then proceeds to fall apart in a quietly terrifying re-enactment of the Black Death, complete with National Guard "bring out your dead" units and a 24/7 immolation pit for the anonymous, canvas-wrapped corpses. Morgan's wife and daughter succumb to the virus in a sequence that is quite stunning in its low-key, almost clinical lack of the standard histrionics.

The black-and-white cinematography is as stark and minimalistic as the story (and, admittedly, the budget). The exterior scenes set in a deserted Los Angeles -- well, actually Rome, shot in the early morning -- are often quite effective in mirroring his internal desolation. Cast and crew alike do an excellent job with the material, despite the monetary constraints. Unlike so many in our current "bash you over the head" school of film-making, the real horror of the situation is allowed to speak eloquently for itself.

If you're expecting the high camp of one of Price's Roger Corman flicks, you'll probably be bored stiff by this movie. If instead you're looking for a surprisingly good adaptation of a great story, you can't do much better than "Last Man On Earth".