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Imagine being the last man on Earth. Just you, living in an empty, dead, silent world. That is the premise of this film, which follows Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) who has managed to survive alone in a post-apocalyptic world where humans have been turned into zombie-like vampires. But is he really the last man on Earth?
This is yet another film I saw to put another notch on my Vincent Price belt. Unlike Shock, this is one I had heard often. The film is based on the novel I Am Legend, which was also adapted recently with Will Smith in the lead. I was actually quite surprised by how similar both films are. It is not an exact carbon copy, but it does feature most of the same story elements.
I also appreciated that the film has a more pensive and mournful vibe to it, instead of focusing on scares and thrills. Director Sidney Salkow makes an effort to show the toll that this isolated life has taken on Morgan's life, and Price does a pretty good job transmitting it. The few sequences of him dumping bodies in a firepit were quite striking.
I don't think it is a spoiler to say that Morgan is not, in fact, the "last man on Earth" (or at least the last "person"). The arrival in the last act of Ruth (Franca Bettoia) puts a spin on things. However, I don't think their interactions were properly executed. I liked the subtexts and themes of it, but I thought there was something lacking in the way it was written and/or acted.
Still, as far as Vincent Price films goes, this is one of the most notable cause he gets the chance to shine, alone, for more than half of the film. The ending is also quite powerful as we see how circumstances put to the test Morgan's "inheritance" and "ownership" of the world; a world that's still learning not to be as "empty" and "dead" as he saw it.
Grade:
THE LAST MAN ON EARTH
(1964, Salkow)
(1964, Salkow)
"Is that all it has been since I inherited the world? Only three years. It seems like a hundred million. Yeah, I own the world. An empty, dead, silent world."
Imagine being the last man on Earth. Just you, living in an empty, dead, silent world. That is the premise of this film, which follows Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) who has managed to survive alone in a post-apocalyptic world where humans have been turned into zombie-like vampires. But is he really the last man on Earth?
This is yet another film I saw to put another notch on my Vincent Price belt. Unlike Shock, this is one I had heard often. The film is based on the novel I Am Legend, which was also adapted recently with Will Smith in the lead. I was actually quite surprised by how similar both films are. It is not an exact carbon copy, but it does feature most of the same story elements.
I also appreciated that the film has a more pensive and mournful vibe to it, instead of focusing on scares and thrills. Director Sidney Salkow makes an effort to show the toll that this isolated life has taken on Morgan's life, and Price does a pretty good job transmitting it. The few sequences of him dumping bodies in a firepit were quite striking.
I don't think it is a spoiler to say that Morgan is not, in fact, the "last man on Earth" (or at least the last "person"). The arrival in the last act of Ruth (Franca Bettoia) puts a spin on things. However, I don't think their interactions were properly executed. I liked the subtexts and themes of it, but I thought there was something lacking in the way it was written and/or acted.
Still, as far as Vincent Price films goes, this is one of the most notable cause he gets the chance to shine, alone, for more than half of the film. The ending is also quite powerful as we see how circumstances put to the test Morgan's "inheritance" and "ownership" of the world; a world that's still learning not to be as "empty" and "dead" as he saw it.
Grade: