obert Morgan (Price), Doctor, is cast by fate as Witness. Civilization is crumbling around his shoulders, mortally fractured by a virus that renders its wretched dead into the horrifying undead. The bodies of former friends and kin are ruthlessly collected by the military to be burned in huge charnel pits. Unburned corpses come back for the blood of the living.
Morgan alone seems to be immune, his blood hardened against the virus by an early bout with fever, but his world is gone. By day it is his city, sere concrete and rolling tumbleweeds of newspaper. By night it is theirs--the shifting acres of undead. He hunts them when the sun is up, poking into their lairs and dark places, impaling them. He's killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, but the count has lost meaning, for the work will never be done.
At night they circle his house (now fortress), beat on its sides with planks and rocks. These times are slow madness for Morgan. While the undead rage without, Morgan ritualizes within, playing records and watching home movies. Only stout walls, wreaths of garlic and (most importantly) bright lights keep doom from advancing over the threshold.
Then one day, he sees something incongruous, a figure--a woman--walking. Morgan calls to her. She runs. Is she real, really alive? Or one of them?
The chase is long, he hardly seems to get closer, and then...she is caught--real, alive, a real human being. He takes her back to his home. At first she is uncommunicative, terse. But as the night draws near and then draws long, she loosens, and Morgan guesses the rest. There are others, not many, but still hanging on. They are not undead yet, but they are close to it. Morgan, in his zeal, has killed not only the damned, but the innocent. The last man on Earth has spent his last years exterminating the last vestiges of humanity, a humanity he might have saved with his vaccine...
An existentialist horror film
This is a strange, strange film for the average English-speaking viewer. Of Italian make (based on Richard Matheson's book, I Am Legend), it may seem alternately comic, horrific and hyper-theatrical. The sets are poor, and the editing and plot far from seamless, but the film's message is superior to standard horror fare: the true horror of days is an unvarying existence of unconquerable aloneness.
Vincent Price is the linchpin of the entire affair. Through his skill and will, the production is graced with believability and pathos. At times, though, even he cannot overcome the schizophrenic tendencies of the work, and his character is rendered overwrought. It is indeed he, moreso than the (unnamed) vampires, who infuses unease in the audience. Most all else is so fantastic and unnavigable that viewers must look to Price to asses the large and little catastrophes. Because of this, one of the most disturbing scenes in the film is where Morgan, overwhelmed, laughs dementedly and unbrokenly for some truly God-awful seconds.
The introduction of the woman is probably the most problematic plot element, and from here things get progressively confusing and chaotic, culminating in a well-intentioned but ultimately ridiculous finale--a symbolist's orgy. The large themes unsuccessfully dealt with here are doom, redemption and salvation--weighty stuff for a film with little buoyancy.
But for all that is wrong, askew or unwieldy in the piece, it is still unnerving. It is the quiet moments--Morgan foraging for gas and garlic, Morgan sharpening stakes on a home lathe--that instill the greatest tremors of unease. Monotonous, tiresome (and ultimately comforting) daily routines have been supplanted by grim to-do lists of survival. Viewers might infer from this film that, at their most basic level, all tools are talismans and needs are utterly primal and close at hand.
