Vincent Price isn’t alone in The Last Man On Earth

American International Pictures

Screen legend Vincent Price gives a masterful performance in this post-apocalyptic sci-fi chiller, the first and most faithful adaptation of Richard Matheson’s classic novel I Am Legend. A plague envelops the earth, decimating the population and leaving one man still alive: scientist Robert Morgan, who exhibits a strange immunity to the deadly disease. The rest of the earth’s people slowly turn into bloodsucking vampires and Morgan must use all of his knowledge to survive their onslaught. Directed by Sidney Salkow and produced by Robert L. Lippert, this seminal classic influenced the creation of Night of the Living Dead plus countless imitations.

REVIEW

Night of the Living Dead may be considered the grandfather of modern zombies on film and TV, but The Last Man On Earth certainly deserves credit for putting that seed into George Romero’s mind. The ‘zombies’ of this film are more akin to vampires, but they are living dead, just a little more articulate. Otherwise, when they come out at night and roam the streets, it’s hard not to think of the Romero classic. The film offers Price the chance to give a tour de force performance as he’s the only speaking character on screen for some time (unless you count the one vampire who keeps yelling his character’s name EVERY. NIGHT for THREE. YEARS … why Robert doesn’t just go out and stake the guy is beyond me). A lot of Price’s dialogue at the beginning is voice over, but we do get some flashbacks to the time before the plague which helps fill in important parts of the story, such as what happened to his family and who that one noisy vampire is. Robert has had to become a ‘killer’ by day, finding as many dormant vampires as he can and taking them to the dump to burn the bodies, while holding down his home fortress at night. He knows all the tricks of keeping the unwanted guests at bay … but they do too, so he always has to be on alert. Price gets to show a softer side to his character once he encounters a woman during his daytime forays, but the question is can he trust her? Price does give a nice performance, marred only by his inability to forcefully throw things at his attackers.

The film’s black and white cinematography enhances the starkness of his situation, but be aware that while this is an American-made film, it was produced in Italy so Price may be the only natively English-speaking actor in the cast. Everyone else is obviously dubbed but there seemed to have been some effort to at least get the actors to speak their lines phonetically so the dubbing isn’t too far off (it was also the practice at the time for Italian films to shoot silent and dub dialogue later so even Price himself is dubbed in the end). I like how the film plunges right into the middle of this plague, which has been ongoing for three years by the time the story starts, and how the flashbacks fill us in on how we got to the present of the story. Over all, it is an entertaining film, sometimes quite campy seen through a lens today, but any time you get to see a movie with Vincent Price is going to be worth the time to watch. And The Last Man On Earth is definitely worth the look, especially to understand its influence on films that came after.

American International Pictures

BLU-RAY

Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray for The Last Man On Earth is nothing short of a revelation. The film had fallen into the public domain, so the market has been flooded with vastly inferior representations of the film. If you own any of those old DVDs (or VHS tapes), burn them just like Robert burns the vampires’ bodies (metaphorically, anyway). The Blu-ray image is pristine, formatted in its proper 2.35:1 aspect ration, perfectly preserving the director’s framing and vision. It looks practically brand new. The gray tones from white to black are perfectly balanced, whites are never blown out and blacks are inky dark. The black and white cinematography must have been an artistic choice since Price had already starred in a handful of vividly colored films for Roger Corman. Color would have ruined the bleakness of the film’s story, so it was a good choice (it also simply could have been cheaper to film in black and white, and if that’s the case then it was just a bit of serendipity). You won’t find a finer representation of this film on home video. The mono audio is also top notch, crystal clear so there are no complaints to be had for this Blu-ray presentation. (NOTE: This appears to be the same master that was part of the now out-of-print ‘Vincent Price Collection II’.)

The disk also includes a feature-length commentary by Richard Harland Smith which is more of an essay and not scene-specific (personally I prefer commentary tracks with a moderator and someone else actually discussing the film with information pertaining to what’s on screen) and is different from the commentary track on the out-of-print disk; another chapter with Richard Matheson discussing the film; a Trailers from Hell with Joe Dante; the Italian trailer; the US theatrical trailer and TV spots; and a slightly different ending (from a much inferior 4:3 print so you can compare and see how great the film looks in comparison). The usual collection of Kino Lorber trailers are also included.

OVERVIEW

The Last Man On Earth is an interesting film and deserves to be acknowledged as one that kickstarted the zombie craze. It may be unintentionally campy in places, and that may be attributed to the English dubbing by people who didn’t actually appear in the film, but it has that same bleak atmosphere that George Romero successfully brought to his own zombie movie. Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray looks and sounds fantastic, and if you don’t already own the box set that previously included the film, then now is your chance to pick it up as a stand-alone feature. Any Vincent Price fan should have this film in their collection, especially this version that presents the film as it was intended.

Kino Lorber generously provided Hotchka with the Blu-ray for reviewing purposes.

The Last Man On Earth has a running time of 1 hour 26 minutes and is not rated.