I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

And Now For Something Completely Different

Tim Forston vs. Shoy Mohr



It's funny, I've been thinking of being able to do a dual review of a movie we've both seen but I hadn't had a chance to ask him about it yet. I started to message him this morning... and found this. Cool! That boy is not only smart, but intuitive. Now saying this is a him-versus-me kind of thing I guess is a little misleading, but who knows? There may be a point or two we don't agree on - small chance, but maybe. Anywho, enjoy yet another great review by Tim of a movie that should have been great (the book, a 1954 novel I am Legend by Richard Matheson, one of my favorite writers was absolutely terrific) but... well, let's get started. Let the fun begin...




The Last Man on Earth (1964)


This movie has been made and re-made as The Last Man On Earth, The Omega Man, I Am Legend and I Am Omega..

Tim: The last two movies I have reviewed were so horribly bad they made my ears bleed. Now that I am fully healed I feel it's time to review a movie that I absolutely love, whether Shoy likes it or not. Which really means I am going to write this whether she likes it or not, but if no one ever reads it then I will know the answer was not. 

Shoy: You underestimate yourself Tim. Your stuff is great and I would never ignore you. You absolutely loved this? I loved the book, true but I felt this movie had some major flaws. And filming it in Italy but setting it in the United States was kind of weird. But let's continue.


Tim: If you have ever asked yourself, "Where did George Romero get his inspiration for Night of the Living Dead?" read I Am Legend cause that’s the answer. To anyone who is a fan of the novel this movie is pure gold. It opens with wide views of a dead American city. Nobody is anywhere, empty roads, buildings - it is a dead world. Then we meet Robert Morgan (Robert Neville in the novel played by Vincent Price the KING of 60's horror) just waking to his day. 

He believes that the only reason he is immune is because when he was stationed in Panama he was bitten by a bat, so magically he was immune. The year is 1968 it's been three years since the world ended. A virus spread around the world that turned the populace into zombie-like, vampiric creatures, with Morgan being there only remaining survivor.

Shoy: I did like this angle - you don't hear of vampire zombies and even though it seems like an oxymoron it works.

Tim: His days are very mundane and stressful, attempt to contact other possible survivors, make stakes to kill the infected, eat, burn the infected that he kills, drink until he passes out and repeat. One thing that this movie does say which the book really goes more into detail on, Christian vampires fear crosses, Mohammedan (yes I guess that’s what they called Muslims in the sixties) vampires fear a crescent moon, Jewish vampires fear a Star of David, Atheists don’t fear any religious shapes. It really makes a lot more sense than the run of the mill crucifix and holy water mess.


Shoy: Amen to that. I thought how come no one else figured this out in subsequent vampire flicks, but then again, Hollywood is bankrupt with ideas so... we're stuck with Catholic vampires.

Tim: All is going normal for Morgan until he notices steel spears staked through dead bodies during one of his searches of the city. He does not use steel stakes, which would of made a lot more sense to me compared to making wooden stakes every morning but oh well. The importance of this to Morgan is unparalleled, there are other survivors somewhere. He finally meets a girl, Ruth, who seems to be as scared of seeing him as she is of the vampires stalking outside at night. 

She tells how she and her husband survived until now, but she recently lost her husband to the virus. He doesn’t trust her, believing she is infected. He shoves garlic into her face, to which she turns away and vomits. This is instant proof to Morgan that she is infected, because one of the side effects of the virus is an allergy to garlic. Then later on he discovers her injecting herself with an antidote that stops her from turning. She explains how the vaccine works, and that she is with others who are trying to rebuild the world. The people she is with are the next evolution of man in the world. 

He is the past, they have been watching him terrified because several of the vampires he has killed sleeping during the day have been their friends and neighbors, including her husband. They are planning on capturing, and executing him as far as they are concerned he is the monster, who is only awake in the day and murders innocent people in their sleep. They were planning on killing him that very night.


Shoy: We're skipping ahead but it's mostly backstory of how Morgan lost his daughter to the disease, the huge fire pits they were burning bodies in, how he desperately tried to get there before they burned his daughter, and his wife's subsequent death. Also these vampire/zombies are perfectly intelligent, they talk and everything but move really, really slow like zombies. In the subsequent remakes they became much faster... but let's keep skipping ahead.

Tim: Morgan attempts to flee while Ruth tries to explain that he is not a monster but just thought that everyone that he was putting down was already dead. But no one heeds her warning. I did leave a lot of the movie out of this review because it is just too good to ruin it for anyone who has not seen it.

Shoy: Whoops. That's me, the killjoy. Oh well.



Tim: It is definitely a Vincent Price classic. This movie has been remade three times. The Omega Man (1971) starring Charlton Heston, which was FAR different from the original and the novel. The far more well known I Am Legend (2007) starring Will Smith, which does keep some of the original story, even if not much. And a completely horrid abomination known as I Am Omega (2007) Starring Mark Dacascos, who would be a good candidate for an 'I know who that is, but no idea what his name is' article if he doesn’t already have one.

Shoy: Not yet, didn't recognize him from anything but I'll definitely work on that.

Tim: I Am Omega regularly airs on the SyFy channel, enough said, and was only made to make a few bucks off of the hype from the Will Smith remake. All in all I firmly believe the Vincent Price version is the absolute best, but I suggest you check them all out (with the exception of the last one I wouldn’t suggest that to a dog) and decide for yourself. I will say they would all be a little better if they would use the final line from the book. Robert Neville's last words, "I am a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend."

Tim, signing off.




Shoy: While I didn't think this was as great I agree they took a complicated story, an unlikely hero, and made a pretty darn good movie out of it. The main differences from the novel: The protagonist of the novel is named Robert Neville, not Robert Morgan. The movie also changed the protagonist's profession from plant worker to scientist. 

The film's vampires are almost zombie-like, whereas in the book, they are fast, capable of running and climbing. The dog that shows up on Neville's doorstep is timid in the novel, and comes and goes as it pleases. The relationship with Ruth also slightly differs from the novel, and no transfusion takes place; a cure seems implausible, even as Neville hopes he will find one. 

Ruth escapes after Neville discovers that she is infected. He is not captured until many months later, and even then he barely fights. The book ends shortly before Neville is to be executed: Ruth returns to give him suicide pills, and finds it ironic that he has become as much of a legend to the new society as vampires once were to his (hence the title). 

The novel implies that the vampire plague resulted from a biological disease. The origin of the disease is not explained in The Last Man on Earth, and is altered in the subsequent adaptations.

Thank you once again Tim, this was cool and a lot of fun and we look forward to seeing a lot more of your reviews (and hopefully of some movies I've already seen).