The Last Man - I Am Legend

THE LAST MAN - I AM LEGEND

Matheson, Richard. 1954. I Am legend. Orian Books: London.

Reading Irvine’s Last Man theory made me think of the film I Am Legend. I Am Legend is set in a world where a deadly plague epidemic has turned the world's population into vampires. The protagonist of the story, Robert Neville, finds himself to be the last living human being on earth. Neville locks himself inside his house at night when the vampires come out, and then during the day he roams the empty city killing the sleeping vampires as they hide from the sun as well as studying the vampire virus in a bid to try and cure it.

I Am Legend 2007 Trailer

Neville's only companion is his un-affected dog, but sadly one day when they are out his dog is attacked and infected and Neville must strangle his beloved companion as it turns into a vampire. In anguish he decides to end his own life and drives his car into a den of vampires only to be rescued by a woman and her son who are still human. They are cornered in his home by the vampires and in one last act he tells the mother and son to hide and gives them the antidote as he self sacrifices himself for their safety.

Sam the dog dies in I Am Legend (2007)

I researched the film and found that it was originally a book by Richard Matheson. Further I realised that most ‘end of the world’ and ‘zombie’ epidemic movies and stories originated from this original one written in 1954, for example, The Last Man on Earth in 1964, Omega Man in 1971, I Am Legend in 2007 and I am Omega in 2007. It was also the inspiration behind the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.

The Last Man on Earth Trailer (1964)

The Book Version of the Story:
In the book Neville is completely alone at the beginning and spends his days drunk and depressed about the loss of his daughter and wife: “He stared into blackness. What’s left? He asked himself. What’s left anyway?” (Matheson 1954, pg 69). One day he sees a dog and spends several weeks trying to befriend the scared canine with food at his doorstep. His hope at a companion is destroyed when one day the dog looks ill and he realises that it has been attacked and infected by the vampires. Haven given up on the dog, he one day spots a woman walking across a field in daylight. He goes to her and takes her back to his home where he begins to grow suspicious of her assurance that she is human: “His throat moved. Such thoughts were hideous testimony to the world he had accepted; a world in which murder was easier than hope” (Matheson 1954, pg 130). In the morning following his discovery of the woman, he wakes to find her gone and a note telling him to leave the house because a society of half infected 'half human’s' are coming for him to exterminate 'the last human'. He doesn’t listen and is captured and executed by the society.

 Matheson hits on the concept of history and time:

The silence of the library was complete save for the thudding of his shoes as he walked along the second-floor hallway. Outside, there were birds sometimes and, even lacking that, there seemed to be a sort of sound outside. Inexplicable, perhaps, but it never seemed deathly still in the open as it did inside a building. Especially here in this giant, gray-stoned building that housed the literature of a worlds dead…The red hands had stopped at four-twenty-seven. He wondered what day they had stopped. As he descended the stairs with his armful of books, he wondered at just what moment the clock stopped. Had it been morning or night? Was it raining or shining? Was anyone there when it stopped? (1954, pg 71)

When investigating the virus Neville stubbornly rejects that germs are the cause of the virus. However soon he changes his mind:

He felt a shudder run down the back of his neck. Was it possible that the same germ that killed the living provided the energy for the dead…He took a drink now; he needed it. He held up his hand until it stopped shaking. All right, little boy, he tried kidding himself, calm down now. Santa Claus is coming to town with the nice answers. No longer will you be a weird Robinson Cruesoe, imprisoned on an island of night surrounded by oceans of death” (Matheson 1958, pg 76).

Further he proves how vampires can scientifically exist much like the shuddering possibilities in the movie 30 Days of Night:

Vampires in 30 Days of Night

 'Eventually the poisons would reach the blood stream. Process complete. And all without blood-eyed vampires hovering over heroines beds. All without fluttering against estate windows, all without the supernatural. The vampire was real. It was only his true story had never been told.' (1954, pg 81)

 He further thinks about how it had been for the vampires:

'And then, Robert Neville thought, to have this hideous dread vindicated. To regain consciousness beneath hot, heavy soil and know that death had not brought rest. To find themselves clawing up through the earth, their bodies driven now by a strange, hideous need. Such traumatic shocks could undo what mind was left. And such shocks could explain much. The cross first of all (because in life it had been a focus of worship had failed them)…the soil (seeking solace in the only thing they feel safe and native in). ' (1954 pg 108)

What struck me most about the story was the power of companionship, especially with the dog. What gives Neville hope and reason to live in the 2007 movie is his dog which he cares for and lives with. When the dog dies he is utterly alone and who wants to live alone for an eternity? I’m pretty sure most of us would contemplate suicide. Food and Water may keep us physically alive but mentally PEOPLE keep us alive, or maybe I should say love:

 “Somehow, though, he managed to ignore his iconoclastic self and went on praying anyway. Because he wanted the dog, because he needed the dog” (Matheson 1954, pg 90).

 In Matheson’s novel Neville remains alive for years utterly alone before the presence of the dog. What kept him going? Matheson hints that it is something Neville himself doesn’t understand and puts it down to human instinct:

And he hadn’t yet killed himself. True he hadn’t treated his body welfare with reverence…But using the body carelessly wasn’t suicide. He’d never even approached suicide. Why? There seemed to be no answer. He wasn’t resigned to the life he’d been forced into. Yet here he was, eight months after the plague’s last victim, nine since he’d spoken to another human being, ten since Virginia had died. Here he was with no future and a virtually hopeless present. Still plodding on. Instinct? Or was he just stupid? (1954, pg 89).

What he does have is his memories of love but even this he realises is a mistake because otherwise he cannot move forward with his day to day surviving if he dwells on the past. Maybe Neville never turned to suicide because he had hope of finding people again and perhaps that is enough: “That didn’t make him any happier. For always he, in spite of reason, he had clung to the hope that someday he would find someone like himself -a man, a woman, a child, it didn’t matter” (Matheson 1954 pg 94).