13 Nights of Shocktober: The Last Man on Earth

by A.J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 2: Vincent Price Night, “You’re freaks! I’m a man! The last man..."

The Last Man on Earth

The Last Man on Earth is the first and best adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend. Matheson himself was not happy with how the ending of the film turned out and had his name taken off the screenplay, which he wrote, but this version is still far, far better than the later adaptations. The other two adaptations are the dreadful The Omega Man from 1971 starring Charlton Heston and the so-so zombie-monster version from 2007 starring Will Smith, titled after the novel. The 1964 version stars horror movie icon Vincent Price as the titular last man on Earth. This film succeeds unlike the other two versions because it has an emotional level that the others did not, and it has the right kind of actor to elicit audience emotions in Price. He conveys excellently the devastating loneliness of being the last man on Earth. He is overjoyed when he finds a dog, the first living thing he’s seen in three years. “We’re going to have lots of happy times together,” he says to dog. It’s a heartbreaking scene because Price makes you feel how desperately in he is need of companionship. Their happy days are short lived. My heart broke again when Price finally sees another person, a woman, and she runs from him and he chases after her shouting "Wait!."

This film begins with beautiful but eerie black and white scenes of a dead world: buildings are abandoned, streets are lined with corpses, and a community church sign reads “The End Has Come.” The setting is a small city, not a metropolis as in most later post-apocalyptic movies, and though this is because of the film’s small budget, it is an advantage. The abandoned, empty average town is a frightening and foreboding place. Though the town is not entirely empty and Price is not entirely alone since those that did not die in the plague turned into vampires. These vampires are slow, lumbering, and not-too-bright but are relentless, numerous, and can use weapons like clubs. They can also speak in low moans. If these vampires act like latter day zombies it is because George Romero credits this film with inspiring Night of the Living Dead. 

Dr. Robert Morgan (Price) spends his days searching through the city methodically and killing as many vampires as he can find. He spends his nights locked up in his house with the record player turned up loud to drown out the sound of the horde outside calling his name. He plays home movies on a projector and is happy for a moment, then grows incredibly sad. There’s a lengthy flashback to happier times, when the end was only beginning. We see Morgan with his wife and daughter. We also see him working with his friend and fellow scientist, Ben, who is now an undead creature outside his home. The debate they have about the slow spreading threat to the world sounds uncomfortably familiar to the modern climate change “debate.” Ben, from the younger generation, is worried about the growing plague in Europe. Morgan, from the older generation, is skeptical and thinks the reports are exaggerated to sell newspapers. The line “Is everyone gonna die before we find an answer?” gave me chills. Morgan and Ben begin working on an antidote, but the end comes too soon.  

What I love about this film are the details that fill out Morgan’s dead and lonely world. We hear his thoughts as voice over narration. He reminds himself to get more gas for his car and to get more garlic from the grocery store. I asked myself why he only takes some garlic from the store instead of taking it all with him. I quickly answered myself: he just needs somewhere to go, something, anything, to do to pass the time. At the beginning of the film we see that it is 1968 and Morgan has been drawing calendars on a wall in his house. We see him make stakes to kill the vampires and we see him load the bodies into the trunk of his car and drive them to a pit. Despite all of that, however, this is not a slow movie. It builds atmosphere. Vincent Price has made several campy films but this one is sincere and spooky. Price has more than enough talent and screen presence to carry every scene in the movie and make it interesting, even if he’s only going through a bin of garlic. The Last Man on Earth maintains its eerie mood and steady pace only to build to a thrilling final act.