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I Am Legend <span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>
 I Am Legend is a 1954 sci-fi novel by Richard Matheson. Few works published in the last century have had as profound an effect on literary and cinematic horror as I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. According to Stephen King, "When I read I Am Legend, I realized that horror could appear in the suburbs, on the street, or even in the house next door." Indeed, King's own 'Salem's Lot, in which the protagonists are menaced by an entire town of vampires, may even be seen as a microcosm of Matheson's more global conception. Adapted for film four times, I Am Legend also inspired George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968), which revolutionized the genre with its graphic gruesomeness, nihilistic ending and stunning commercial success for a low-budget, independent production. Published as a Gold Medal paperback in 1954, I Am Legend was dedicated to prolific SF writer Henry Kuttner, whose story "The Twonky" was filmed by Arch Oboler in 1953. Matheson's third novel, it marked a return to the genre in which he was firmly established with the appearance of his first published story, "Born of Man and Woman," in 1950. Inspired by friends who wrote crime fiction, he had digressed into that field with Someone Is Bleeding and Fury on Sunday, both paperback originals published the previous year, and recently reissued with Ride the Nightmare (1959) in the omnibus edition Noir. Matheson had previously touched on the theme of vampirism in his stories "Drink My (Red) Blood" (aka "Blood Son") and "Dress of White Silk" but the seed that became I Am Legend was planted a decade earlier when Matheson, then seventeen, attended a revival screening of Tod Browning's Dracula (1931). "The immediate thought was, 'Well, if one vampire is frightening, then a whole world full of vampires should be more frightening.' That's not necessarily so," he told writer Matthew R. Bradley. "One well-done single vampire story can be a lot better than tons of 'em, but I Am Legend worked out anyway."
 The premise of I Am Legend is chillingly simple: What if a plague of unknown origin turned every human being on Earth into a vampire, save for one man apparently rendered immune by the bite of a Panamanian vampire bat years before? Chronicling three years in the life of its protagonist, Robert Neville, the novel opens in January of 1976, six months since the plague claimed its last victim, seven since Neville has spoken to another human being, and eight since the death of his wife, Virginia. Reflecting the Cold War anxiety of the period, the plague was spread by a germ borne on dust storms resulting from an apparent nuclear war. It would be difficult to improve upon I Am Legend for its realization of Matheson's self-described leitmotif, "the individual isolated in a threatening world, attempting to survive," as Neville literally takes on the world, forced to become completely self-sufficient. Like a Western hero preparing for the siege of his own private Alamo, he burns down the neighboring houses on Cimarron Street to prevent the vampires from jumping onto his and systematically maintains both his defenses (crosses, mirrors, garlic, boarded-up windows) and the means of his continued existence, such as the workshop where he makes the all-important wooden stakes. Matheson's skill in portraying Neville's aching loneliness and the crushing sameness of his unvarying routine is unsurpassed. By day he works his way systematically through Los Angeles, a bag of stakes across his back and a mallet in a holster, disposing of the undead whenever he finds them in their hiding places, and religiously returning home by sunset. By night, he barricades himself inside the house, trying to drown out the cries of the vampires—and especially the lewd provocations of the women, which underscore his totally futile desire for female companionship—at first with whiskey and classical music, then later on with soundproofing. The past haunts Neville continually, both in the concrete form of his best friend and neighbor, Ben Cortman, who now leads the vampires and retains enough intelligence to elude Neville's search-and-destroy missions, and in his memories of Virginia and their daughter, Kathy. After Kathy's body was consigned to the eternally burning pit that is the only safe method for disposing of plague victims—a bonfire a hundred yards square and a hundred feet deep—Neville defied the authorities by secretly burying Virginia, with predictable and terrifying results. "A man could get used to anything if he had to," he muses, yet he frequently wonders why he goes on instead of ending this nightmarish existence, whose inescapable finality Matheson simply and eloquently sums up in his narration: "There was no waking up from this." I Am Legend undertakes one of the first scientific explanations for vampirism. Though portrayed in some film versions as a scientist, Matheson's Robert Neville is a layman who formerly held an unspecified job at "the plant" and must start from scratch in the Science Room of the Los Angeles Public Library when he begins investigating such questions as, Why do only wooden stakes work? Why are bullets ineffectual? Why does garlic affect them? Why does daylight kill them? Why do they fear the cross? In the devastating climax, he is hunted down and ultimately put to death by a group of infected humans who have learned to control the plague by chemical means, and thus regard him as the aberration.
Film AdaptationsIronically, this classic novel has fared less well in its official screen versions. England's Hammer Films brought Matheson to London to adapt I Am Legend, retitled Night Creatures. "I always thought that they were kidding me when they said the censor wouldn't pass it," he told Bradley of Hammer's ill-fated attempt. Yet when informed by the censor's office just before shooting began to expect an outright ban in Britain, Hammer's Michael Carreras had no choice but to sell the project to American producer and exhibitor Robert L. Lippert, who had the script rewritten by William P. Leicester. Disappointed with the results, Matheson had his screenwriting credit replaced with his pseudonym of Logan Swanson, a combination of his mother-in-law's maiden name and the American version of his mother's last name. The Last Man on Earth
An initially delighted Matheson was told that Fritz Lang might direct the film, although the task soon devolved upon Sidney Salkow, an undistinguished American director of second features (and, as Matheson dryly observed to Bradley, "a bit of a comedown from Fritz Lang"). Shot in Italy for economic reasons, L'Ultimo Uomo della Terra (The Last Man on Earth) was released by American International Productions in 1964 and featured their reigning horror star, Vincent Price, in the title role, his name inexplicably altered to Morgan. But while pleased with Price's work in several of the films he had already written for AIP, Matheson thought him completely miscast as "Morgan." Though clearly betraying its impoverished production values and faux–American setting, the film benefited from Franco Delli Colli's moody, monochromatic photography, which, along with the appearance of its slow-moving, almost robotic vampires (led by Italian genre mainstay Giacomo Rossi-Stuart as Ben Cortman), would be echoed in Night of the Living Dead. The latter was cowritten by John Russo and reportedly originated with an untitled and unpublished story, written by Romero several years earlier and inspired by I Am Legend. Widely considered to be closer in spirit to Matheson's novel than either adaptation, it also depicted a group of people barricaded against an undead horde seeking to consume them, in this case to eat their flesh rather than drink their blood.  The Omega Man
Despite Leicester's rewrite, The Last Man on Earth was largely faithful to its source, although the same cannot be said of Boris Sagal's remake for Warner Brothers. The Omega Man (1971) wound up as an action vehicle for a machine gun–toting Charlton Heston, complete with a jazzy score by Ron Grainer, composer of the memorable theme music for cult TV series The Prisoner and Doctor Who, and a trendy interracial romance with Rosalind Cash. "The first one was very poorly done, but it did follow the book," Matheson admitted in John Brosnan's The Horror People. "The Omega Man bore no resemblance at all to my book, so I can't comment on it. I had absolutely nothing to do with the screenplay but they did pay me a very small remake fee. I don't know why they bothered really. I still think it would make an interesting film." Produced by Walter Seltzer, The Omega Man was adapted by husband-and-wife novelists John William and Joyce H. Corrington, whose script, set in 1977, supplants Matheson's vampires with a "Brotherhood" of light-hating mutant albinos, led by ex-newscaster John Matthias (Anthony Zerbe). Flashbacks reveal that Neville was forced to inject himself with a test vaccine he helped develop to counter bacilli spread during a Sino-Soviet War in 1975. Impaled with a spear in the climax, he dies in a blatantly Christ-like pose after symbolically bequeathing a group of infected youngsters a bottle of his blood, from which they can make a serum that will cure them. I am Legend
A third film version was announced with a revolving door of directors, screenwriters, and stars attached, but appeared to be stuck in "development hell," and, according to Matheson, the draft he had seen bore little resemblance to his work. Yet the novel has rarely been out of print since it was first published, and was also adapted by Steve Niles into a four-part graphic novel, illustrated by Elman Brown and published by Eclipse Books in 1991. The third film opened on December 14, 2007, starring Will Smith. The film was a hit and received mainly positive reviews for Smith's performance. At least one other version of the story was committed to film: A 2007 straight-to-video movie titled "I Am Omega," starring Marc Dacascos. External LinksI Am Legend 2007 movie at IMDB.com
2008, SCI FI. All rights reserved.
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