I Am Legend... Not

So yesterday was the first chance I've had to chillax for an entire day in what felt like months. I took the opportunity to sit on my butt and watch a few movies. I watched Aeon Flux, which I ended up liking. At first, I thought it was the worst written movie I have ever seen, but then once the plot was revealed it (mostly) redeemed itself. I watched Witless Protection (You know, Larry The Cable Guy?). If you watched it for what it was, it was a good movie and rather funny. I watched I Am Legend. There were a few things in this movie that made me angry, but overall I really enjoyed it. Will Smith is always brilliant (including the Fresh Prince days).

So now on to the reason for this post... The Last Man On Earth is a film released in 1964 that starred Vincent Price and was based on the novel, "I Am Legend". I like comparing old movies (The old version of the Andromeda Strain is MUCH better than the new) so I had to give this movie a try after watching I Am Legend. Quite simply put, The Last Man On Earth is probably the worst hour and a half of film I have ever watched. From the crappy narration (done by Vincent Price), past the uninspired "vampire" version of the zombies, through to the horrible, horrible ending, this movie just oozes crap. The real clincher for me was when the zompires started talking... "Moooorgaaaaan, can you hear me?" as they all wield their identical stick of wood (who knows where they got it from) beating it on the side of his house, "I'm going to kill you Moooorgaaaan". At least there's no risk of misunderstanding their intent I guess...

Seriously, I'd like to tell you that the movie is worth watching for a laugh or two, but it's really not. The filmography is total crap too. My (least) favorite scene is when Morgan (Price) is coming out of the church after mourning his dead wife (whom he had buried elsewhere and she later came back to visit him, "leeet meee iinnnn") and the camera cuts to an outside view and you see two zompires hiding behind the railing. As Price walks by they jump out and attack him. The only scene worse than this one is when he is loading a couple dead zompires into the back of his station wagon and you can clearly see the actress move to get out of the way of the new body he is putting in.

Oh, and then you have the gratuitous scene where the military takes his dead 10 year old daughter's body and throws it into a giant burning pit. Awesome. I won't even put up with that in a good movie.

In short, thank you Will Smith.