I am Legend

For a long time I’ve intended to post something about I Am Legendthe classic novel by Richard Matheson. Although it’s a book about vampires, its style, structure and atmosphere has in some way influenced countless zombie stories (mine included) since its publication almost 50 years ago. People like Romero, King and Koontz have cited the book’s originality and importance. I was doing a spot of ‘guerrilla marketing’ the other day (i.e. leaving AUTUMN postcards on the shelves of the horror sections in bookstores) and I was pleased to see that the novel still rightly occupies a prominent position amongst the classics of horror literature.

For those who haven’t read the book, the story centres around Robert Neville, a man immune to a terrible plague which has devastated the planet, turning the rest of the population into desperate vampires. My one sentence synopsis doesn’t do it any favours – this is thought-provoking, uncomfortable reading. Post-apocalyptic fiction of the very highest order.

Seeing the book on the shelves again inspired me to get hold of a copy of Last Man on Earththe first film adaptation of Matheson’s tale. Vincent Price gives a good performance as the sole survivor (renamed Robert Morgan). The film is widely available on DVD and can also be found as a legal bit torrent download (it’s in the public domain) so there’s no excuse for not watching it. It struck me again just how dark and sinister this story is, and the inspiration for Romero’s original Night of the Living Deadis plain to see. The film is full of nightmarish images and has a wonderfully bleak ending which must have gone down like a lead balloon with cinema audiences at the time. All credit to a film which has the nerve to obey the first rule of post-apocalyptic story telling – chances are you’re never going to get a happy ending.

The story was filmed again in the early 1970’s as The Omega Manstarring Charlton Heston. After a promising opening the film degenerates into a series of bad performances and dated set-pieces. It’s entertaining enough, but I’ve found it’s one of those films you enjoy the memory of more than the film itself. I watched it from behind the sofa at a very early age and loved it. I watched it again a couple of years back and didn’t!

Now for the bad news, and this goes back to the comments I made in my earlier post about ‘Product’. It’s reported today that a new version of ‘I am Legend’ is to be made, starring Will Smith. Is it just me, or does this sound bloody awful? Will the studio allow the character played by Smith to have the same desperate fate as Robert Neville in the original novel, or Robert Morgan in the first film? Will he be a terrified and isolated survivor, or a cheeky, wise-cracking action hero / idiot? Will the film have a dark and atmospheric soundtrack, or will they have Smith doing another one of his fucking terrible radio-friendly, unit-shifting, soundtrack tie-in raps? I don’t think that there will be any artistic merit whatsoever in this remake. Yet again it’s all about profit and another horror classic gets defaced unecessarily.

Read the book or watch the Vincent Price version and let’s just pretend this new film isn’t happening.