I AM THE LAST LEGENDARY OMEGA EARTH MAN!

THE LAST MAN ON EARTH

THE OMEGA MAN

I AM LEGEND

Every plague zombie movie you've ever seen from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD to 28 DAYS LATER and all the RESIDENT EVILS can be traced to Richard Matheson's 1954 novel "I am Legend". The first adaptation was partially written by Matheson himself, well sort of, he used the pseudonym Logan Swanson and is the closet to the book. Vincent Price plays Robert Morgan, not who I pictured but whatever. He spends his days making stakes and drinking and at night he's locked up as the vampires roam around being a pain in the ass. We hear his thoughts through voice over, mostly stuff about searching the city and what he's having for breakfast. Through a montage we see him driving around, staking vampires and burning the corpses pretty much in a business as usual fashion. At night the vampires throw rocks and say "Morgan , come out" a lot. Like in the novel one of his vampire tormentors is his former neighbor Ben. The vampires move pretty much like Romero's ghouls in NOLD, they're fairly slow and clumsy. When Morgan gets lonely he drags out the remarkably well shot and edited 8mm home movies which make him smile right before he starts sobbing. So then he flashes back to the stuff he just watched on film so we can get some back story. As with the other two adaptations flashback is how we learn of the plague that has spread from Europe. The subject of the dead returning as vampires is rumor at first and biologist Morgan isn't buying it, that it until it's undeniable as his dead wife comes back. While out burying his dog he comes across a woman walking around in the light which would seem to be a good thing but not so much. As in the novel there are two different types of vampires, one being at least semi-manageable with pills. All along Morgan has been killing both kinds whenever he can and the more coherent type view him as the monster. So we get a little of the theme from the book with Morgan as a legendary monster to the vampires. Basically they evolved into something new and he didn't. As to why Morgan is immune to the plague, he offers up the theory that a bat bite in the past vaccinated him in some way.

Price isn't right for the part but it's a pretty good version just apparently not good enough for Matheson to keep his name on it. Shit, I think he kept his name on JAWS III even. Maybe it was the transfusion that cures the woman he didn't like, I don't think that's in the book. The widescreen version on the newish disk looks great especially if the only version you've seen is the public domain cheap version. The film was an Italian/American co-production directed by Ubaldo Ragona.

THE OMEGA MAN

"Die , you chalk faced goons!" -Homer Simpson in "The Homega Man"

For the second official adaptation it's Chuck Heston as a Chuck Hestonish Robert Neville fighting anti-technology chalk faced goons in 1971's THE OMEGA MAN. Heston's Neville is a lot more in the "die , you sons of bitches" mode than Price's dandy suburbanite despite the fact that at one point he "dresses for dinner" in some kind of fruity ruffled shirt. Don't worry he usually wears a combination of what I call "Daktari Apocalypto" and has a bunch of machine guns. No vampires this time, just albino mutants that survived the plague but have taken on a kind of Satanic chic created by wearing hooded robes ,calling themselves the Family and spewing anti-technology rhetoric. They are led by former newscaster Mathias played by Anthony Zerbe who is convinced Neville is a devil that must be destroyed. Neville spends his days driving around, catching movies, shopping and shooting mutants. The Family seem to have they're own soundtrack, a sort of Anton Lavey carnival organ rock that comes on when they appear. Through flashbacks we learn that the plague was a weapon used in the Chinese-Russian war and we see a lot of early seventies stuff like hippies and rockets. All the while news anchor Zerbe blathers on about the end of technological man while people drop dead everywhere. Neville is a military scientist who injects himself with an experimental virus giving him immunity. Neville is nearly burned alive in his first close call with martyrdom but is rescued by a group of young survivors led by Lisa (Rosalind Cash) who does her best "Christy Love " impression with sassy dialogue involving the word "sucka" a lot. She's a Harlem babe who is down with the street and the only game in town for old Chuck. In a move that probably riled the cross burning crowd, who were still pissed about the Kirk -Uhura deal, Neville and Lisa get it on. Here's where the movie seems to stumble a bit as Neville develops a serum to save Lisa's dopey brother. Once saved the stupid brother seems to think Neville is as scary as Mathias and decides to try to convince The Family they can be healed by telling them of Neville's serum, for which in return they kill him. Meanwhile Lisa goes shopping and almost instantly turns mutant. It just seems rushed and forced to get to the ending as she helps the Family trap Neville. Which brings us to Heston's most Jesus Christy sacrificial demise ever complete with crucifixion pose and spear. Sure, it's a lot different than the book but Heston makes it cool and I love the fact that it is so much of it's time. And on a unrelalted but hilarious note, Zerbe's Mathias is a dead ringer for Michael Jackson's high profile defense lawyer Tom Mesereau. Which brings us to:

I AM LEGEND

Man seemed like they were trying to make this one forever. Even Governor Schwarzeneggar was Neville at one point. But was it all worth it? Neville this time is again miscast and played by Will Smith. My problem with Smith is he just doesn't looked like a guy who has seen the end of the world or even had a bad day. He's in great shape, he doesn't get drunk, he's just Will Smith. Not his fault but still. I would've gone with Hugh Laurie. Anyway, this time around it's a cure for cancer that has caused a plague and some unfortunate mutations. Neville has a German Shepherd who he hunts with and watches dvds or rerun news with when he's not experimenting on mutants in his home lab. The film makers make sure we love the dog but they may as well have beamed him down in a red shirt. The mutants have the least amount of personality this time around and I would call them "bat Faced goons" similar in appearance to the monsters from THE DESCENT. Neville's pretty obsessive about finding a cure and we learn from flashback that his family was killed trying to leave the city. There's a pretty cool, creepy moment when he comes across a nest of sleeping bat men and also his deer hunt scene is nice but overall it just never seems to get going. There's never one cool action scene where he just wastes a bunch of mutants like you have in THE OMEGA MAN. Again Neville finds a woman and her son who are not infected but it seems rushed as almost immediately they are attacked. When the monsters are cgi they just seem phony with too many superhuman leaping, climbing abilities. Before you know it, it's over with Neville making another sacrificial exit but it just doesn't seem to make much sense. In the alternate ending, they seem to go for the idea that Neville is himself the monster to the new race like in the book and while better it still seems flat. Overall it's more of a THE OMEGA MAN remake than a adaptation of the book. I read that the studio was dead set against it being vampires as they felt it wouldn't work. I don't know. The whole thing could've been shot cheaper without the cgi and big star, stuck closer to the book and worked better.