"The Last Man On Earth" is a Vincent Price movie, starring the actor in one of the few roles where he wasn't the bad guy. Sort of. To some, his character was a legend.
This was the first Vincent Price movie that I ever saw, having watched it many years ago with my father. My Dad always loved films like these; another apocalyptic film he liked being "Panic In The Year Zero". I watched many apocalyptic/zombie movies growing up, such as "Night of The Living Dead", and "Dawn of The Dead".
The movie is based off of the book "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson, which was released in 1954. According to the lore, the screenplay was partially written by Matheson, but apparently, he was dissatisfied, and only wanted to be credited under a pseudonym. The film was originally to be produced by Hammer Films in the 50's, but this didn't happen, and it was given to API. With the change of hands, it seems that this is where Matheson's dissatisfaction began.
The plot to the film is that a viral epidemic breaks out, and wipes out humanity with the exception of Robert Morgan, who was played by Price. Morgan is a scientist that had tried to help find some sort of vaccine or cure to the disease, which basically turned people into vampires. Garlic and a mirror is hung on the front door to Morgan's house, which seems to drive the vampire zombies away. In the movie, the infected are like some sort of mixture between vampires, and zombies. Undead, but can see their faces in the mirror, and hates garlic. What's strange, and unexplained, is that when people become infected, they eventually go blind, right before they die. But somehow, when they resurrect, they can see again? The undead can look at themselves in the mirror, and hate their appearance.... I'm not sure if anyone really thought that point out.
Despite things like this, I find this movie to be among one of the best of all time, as strange as that might be. It's not because of how the film is conveyed, it's more about what the film conveys.
Author Matheson stated that he felt like Vincent Price was miscast for the film, and years after, felt like Harrison Ford would have been a better match. I find this to be odd though, as Vincent Price was playing the role of a scientist, which I think he did well! Perhaps Matheson wanted his movie to be more action packed, which would make sense. The movie depicts the vampires as slow and dumb, much like zombies are, while apparently in the book, they were fast. Despite this, Matheson himself even stated that this movie was the closest and most faithful to his original work. I personally don't believe that Harrison Ford would have done a better job than Price. Ford's acting roles aren't typically as emotional and thought driven like Prices' were.
According to IMDB, the movie became public domain due to a clerical error. So, ever since the 80's, this film is virtually free to see anywhere. I watched it on youtube, but you can find it across the internet.
After I rewatched the movie (for this blog post), I thought about how it reminded me a lot of "Night of The Living Dead". It's funny that I even thought that, because apparently this film did inspire George Romero to create his film, which came out 4 years later! When you compare the two, you can see how Robert Morgan was an inspiration for the character Ben. Both are tragically killed, despite being good guys. Much of the idea of surviving an apocalyptic scenario in a house in paralleled here. It's unsurprising that I enjoy both films.
I couldn't find any reviews for the movie in the newspaper archives, though it was advertised, of course. It was commonly advertised with the movie, "Goliath And The Vampires", which makes sense in a way, as "Last Man" is about a viral outbreak that turns people into vampires. I am unsure where you can even watch Goliath though, today.
I found the idea of the viral vampire outbreak to be interesting, and liked the fact that there was some sort of attempt at trying to explain this form of vampirism. Once again, this film is a classic, as it definitely inspired many zombie films for the future, and games too, surely. How many zombie movies, games, and shows have talked about where the origin of the outbreak came from? This is something that's prevalent in the Resident Evil series, touched on in The Walking Dead show, and technically, you even see an origin story for this in Return of The Living Dead, with the "typical Army fuck up". Hell, we even get a little bit of that with Dawn of The Dead, with the famous line of, "When there's no more room in Hell....".
It's funny though, this is one of the few films to unintentionally blend vampires and zombies together, and probably among the few to try connecting vampires to science. Typically, you see zombies looked at in the scientific angle...vampires are almost always seen as too mystical. At least to me. I give the movie credit for that. Of course, this is in hindsight. When the film was first released, it was the first of its kind in many ways.
This was before many of the biological horror and zombie movies of today, or how the genre developed a decade later. While zombies were talked about in movies before 1964, they were more in the Voodoo sense, and not the commonly thought of brain eating Romero ones.
Like much of Vincent Price's movies, much of the film is subtle, and of course, the violence isn't overt. A good example of this is in the scene with the dog, where it turns out to be infected too. You don't hear any dialogue spoken about what Price's character is going to do...you just see a scene where he is burying something afterwards.
This was likely done as our culture was just so different back then. I imagine that many people didn't want to see any violence, considering how many wars were going on during this time period. Looking at films like these, it's clear that these types of movies were intended for older audiences, likely middle aged and up. I think that many of the subtleties would have been lost on younger adults. It also explains why the horror genre changed so much in the 70's. By then, the younger Baby Boomers were in their 20's and 30's, and their style was much more visual. There's a big difference between the horror depicted in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (created by Tobe Hooper, a Baby Boomer), and "Madhouse" (created by the generation before him).
One of the things I do wish they did differently in "Last Man", was how the film was overdubbed. The film was created in Italy, and recorded in black and white to save money. The majority of the actors were Italian, with the only exceptions being Vincent Price, and the actress who played his daughter. All of the lines were added later, and the Italian actors had English dubbers. By doing this, it made the film look too cheesy, and it took away from the serious tone of the film. The lines to nearly everyone, except Vincent Price, the daughter, and Dr. Mercer, looked and sounded silly. Ben Cortman and Virginia Morgan's overdubs were especially cheesy and bad. They didn't sound very believable, and were quite stock. This is a shame, because Ben Cortman's actor, Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, was actually quite good! If the overdubbing was one of the reasons why Matheson didn't like the film, then I would completely understand. The choice to dub over, at least in this way, was definitely a detracting point to the film.
What's strange though, is that the poster advertising the movie isn't faithful to what the movie is about. It makes little sense. There's a house pictured that's not even in the movie. So for some, that may have been misleading.
I will say though, the fact that the movie was filmed in black and white didn't take away its impact for me. Actually, I felt that it emphasized the serious tone of it.
But overall, I really enjoy this, and find it to be an incredibly important classic. It has so much potential to inspire, even to this day. This is one of those movies that makes you wonder, "What if?". The idea of something like this possibly happening is always on peoples' minds, perhaps even more so, ever since 2020.
I gave this a 3/5 on letterboxd.
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