The Last Man on Earth

I'm not sure why this film is as underrated as it is. This is an amazing, depressing and in many ways brilliant film based on the Richard Matheson classic novel "I Am Legend". Vincent Price effectively conveys the terror and despair of being the last living man on an Earth that is now overrun with vampires and/or zombies. The depiction of Price's day to day bleak existence is a moving and powerful thing to behold and the continual menace of the hordes of zombies is creepy in the same way as was later depicted in "Night of the Living Dead". In fact, as noted by others here, one can not watch the scenes where the zombies lay siege to Price's boarded up house and attack his car without recognizing how close these scenes would later be copied by George Romero in his classic zombie films. If you are a fan of horror film history or just looking for a classic and unique film with an interesting story, track down this lost gem.

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").

I like this film, and definitely associate it with my childhood, via the inside cover of an old issue of Famous Monsters that pictured a vampire arm groping around the door for Vincent Price. I gazed at that photo as the magazine wore out, for years before I actually got to see the film.

Vincent Price is always good to see. But as he is not a terribly physical actor, he looks awkward doing some of the things he is called on to do here, like dragging a body to the edge of a pit and heaving it in, pounding a stake into a vampire heart, or hurling a mirror across the room in disgust and despair. Not standing about with cocktail in hand, dressed to the nines and oozing wicked sophistication, he looks about as out of place as Cary Grant would setting a trash can out at the curb.

I ask, in the title of this review, if we like this film "for all the wrong reasons" because, inescapably, I find it pitched at a sort of self-pity, tapping into the allure of images of yourself alone at the center of the human universe, of satisfied contemplation of the stupid folly of Man the Scientist, the Politician, the Warrior, that will bring the end of his own species. --In a word, it seems to inhabit a place that is the near-exclusive province of the truly isolated, disaffected and fantasy-prone adolescent.

Being aware of this demographic skew doesn't invalidate the real and strong emotional place the film creates and enables anybody else to inhabit. But I do wonder about the effusive, near-idolatrous over-analysis this film has been known to elicit. I think it would be a pity if, through the growing cult of this film, we come to be less moved by horror --the whole precept on which Matheson's novel and the film are based-- than seduced by the film's image of post-apocalyptic solitude, which can lapse into full-blown gloating misanthropy with just a slight nudge.

I find Last Man oppressively tragic and sobering and depressing-- and always, always utterly absorbing. Even tenth time watched, it feels like you are watching your own funeral, listening to nothing less than taps being sounded for your own species. This is, not to be too glib, the films greatest strength AND weakness.

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.

I never read Richard Matheson's novel 'I am Legend' but I'm particularly intrigued by (science fiction) movies with an apocalyptic theme. And this adaptation simply is one of the most fascinating stories of an already brilliant decade for this type of films. Much more than a grim horror film, this is a gripping drama with an excellent (as always) Vincent Price as the sole and devastated survivor of a deadly plague that exterminated the entire human race, including his own wife and daughter. Price is Dr. Robert Morgan and due to his immunity to the lethal germs, he's the only one to fight victims who return in the shape of vampire/zombie-like creatures. Even though it has already been 3 years, Morgan desperately continues his search for other survivors…This is one of the most impressive performances Price ever gave away, and a lot more difficult than his usual roles of villains and madmen. Judging by today's standards, I guess the film looks very dated and you can't really refer to the tame 'vamp-zombies' as threatening anymore. But the empty streets and depressing cities, shot in unsettling black and white, still are the ultimate in eeriness! I love it when a film makes you feel miserable and worried…and the lower the budget is, the more efficient this effect is reached!

Like several of my fellow-reviewers already pointed out, this also was an immensely influential film. You can't watch 'Last man on Earth' without being reminded of George A. Romero's milestone genre film 'Night of the Living Dead'. If you then realize this movie was made 4 years before Romero's classic, you can't but reckon the underrated brilliance of this film. The same hopelessness-aspect that made Romero's film so tense features HERE first, in 'Last Man on Earth'! This production offers an ideal proportion of frights and sentiments, luckily without too many tedious scientific speeches or faked drama. 'Last Man on Earth' has to be seen by every SF/horror fan on this planet. For some reason this is one of the most underrated genre efforts ever, and that urgently has to change.