Reviews

As a keen fan of Richard Matheson's seminal vampire novella "I AM LEGEND", I was delighted to hear that it was to be filmed for a third occasion after Vincent Price starred in the low budget Italian made "THE LAST MAN ON EARTH" (1964) and Charlton Heston fought hooded, psychotic plague victims in "THE OMEGA MAN". However, after viewing the Will Smith film I came away quite disappointed and "I AM LEGEND" was easily the least faithful adaptation of the novel and something of a hollow movie overall.

( WARNING : POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD ) Where did it go wrong ? Personally, for me I am over post-apocalyptic movies that show repeatedly show iconic points of interest in famous cities (New York, London etc) to illustrate the point that the city is deserted. I didn't pay my admission fee to watch a travelogue of a barren New York filled with weeds, rusting cars and free range deer running up Fifth Avenue. I can work it out for myself that the cities buildings and infrastructure have eroded and corroded over several years since the population was exterminated so I don't need it to be shown ad nausea. Secondly, the plague victim "dark seekers" of "I AM LEGEND" seem to be more closely related to The Incredible Hulk than the vampires of Mathesons novel ! They run like the wind, leap up the side of tall buildings in a single bound, head butt their way through steel shutters, armored glass and flip over fully loaded SUV's.....but they are still susceptible to bullets ???? Boy, that must have been some crazy virus that turned their skulls into armored battering rams, but when they screech they look like enraged cartoon characters with their over-sized dinner plate mouths.

Where was the "Ben Cortman" character from the novel - he was nowhere to be seen, and his relationship with Robert Neville was a central component to the entire book. At least in "THE OMEGA MAN" Charlton Heston had the sinister "Mathias" as his antagonist to hound him in the night time hours with his brethren of fellow nut cases ! As far as the CGI effects of the "dark seekers" was concerned - I felt like I was watching an episode of "BUFFY - THE VAMPIRE SLAYER". They looked fake and that reduced the scare factor considerably. Their were some wonderful opportunities to really go somewhere new with this film, and they all fell well short of achieving some new benchmark in the horror genre.

As far as I'm concerned, I hope that one day some studio has the guts to film the book with a far higher degree of accuracy. This latest version runs second to "THE OMEGA MAN" not just in its lack of faithfulness to the book, but also in that "I AM LEGEND" relies too much on showing a decaying New York and computer generated vampires in place of more invigorating story and character development.

Being a keen fan of John Wyndham's books, and the earlier 1962 screen adaptation of "Day Of The Triffids", I purchased this DVD based purely on the strength of the votes on the IMDb site. ( This six part mini series was released on DVD in Australia / Region 4 about a year ago ) This 1981 BBC mini-series is far more faithful to the original book than was the 1962 film starring Howard Keel, both in story and characters. The three lead actors : John Duttine, Emma Relph and Maurice Colbourne are all very capable in their roles, and come across convincingly as average people thrown into a maelstrom of lawless society and predatory flesh eating plants. The series has an unsettling and eerie atmosphere and has been well directed by Ken Hannam to hold viewer interest throughout the 160 minute running time.

My only real gripe about the series is the obvious low budget that was afforded to it's production by the BBC. Many of the shots are clearly on studio sets, and for the subsequent days after the entire populace of London is blinded by the meteorite shower, their is minimal footage of any type of mob chaos, crashed vehicles, rioting, fires etc. Strangely, out of a population of over six million Londoners, most of them not only go blind, but they seem to have subsequently disappeared, as the city streets are strangely deserted ? ( I can only guess it was cheaper to film deserted streets, as opposed to filming hundreds of extras stumbling around feigning vision loss ! ) Never to mind, for these few faults, this is still an entertaining and captivating piece of sci-fi that demonstrates a good, strong story is central to making solid entertainment.

Where I grew up, I recollect as a young teen that one of the TV channels used to show horror / sci-fi movies around midnight on Friday nights under the regular banner of "Movies from the Morgue", So, late one Friday night I stayed up expectantly to see this "horror movie about mutant monsters". After watching the film for about fifteen minutes, I wasn't too sure which was the most horrifying....the acting, the singing, the dancing or the skeletons re-animated into amphibious monsters ! This strange exercise in combining two profitable genres of the early 1960's ( beach movies and atomic monster films ) probably seemed like a good idea at the time, however the end result is one absurd movie with the entire cast in dire need of several years dramatic training at the Actors Studio. Plus these lame teens, have to fake shrieks of horror at the sight of the homicidal monsters ( each one of them with their mouths stuffed full of hot dogs ! ). And after several nubile females have been knocked off by the Weiner monsters, the beach teens and some kooky scientist hatch a plan to plaster these aquatic killers with sodium to disintegrate them. Personally, I would have thrown sodium at the Del-Aires to stop their shocking songs.

Now, I'm going to have to admit the truth.....I purchased a copy of this movie on DVD ! Why ? Well, I think it has some strange subconscious appeal to me....in the same way that you slow down to look at a car accident, or when someone gets clobbered on a sporting field. Can't wait for the twin disc limited edition version with the alternate endings ( and a free six pack of hot dogs ).