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..."
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.
