Vincent Price has always been an acquired taste for me. I remember in the Seventies he had a goofy kids television show that relied heavily on his horror persona. It lasted for a few years and died. The movie "The Last Man on Earth" is alive and well and living in the public domain.
The movie is bleak from the start. The shots of an unkept city, lifeless, and littered with corpses will knock your shoes off. So be careful where you walk. And don't go out after sunset. Never. Price is wonderful in playing a disheveled man on the brink of insanity. His haggard look and stooped posture goes miles in conveying his deep sense of loss. Richard Matheson's novel,the original source, was set in Los Angeles. But this film was lensed in Italy. I think the move across the pond was beneficial in creating its creepy atmosphere. The locations chosen reveal streets, cemeteries, and buildings of worship that all look a bit strange to the American eye. Even the trees and cars come across as being from another land. Not the United States. But a world where the dead could walk alongside the living. The undead shuffle along like patrons in an after-hours club, but they are still ghostly and menacing. They lust, like vampires, after the blood of Price. He in turn spends long hours and endless days wielding a mallet and stake like Barry Bonds. Only later will Price discover the secret behind the plague and his ultimate fate. He cheated science but in the end he payed the final price.
The movie is bleak from the start. The shots of an unkept city, lifeless, and littered with corpses will knock your shoes off. So be careful where you walk. And don't go out after sunset. Never. Price is wonderful in playing a disheveled man on the brink of insanity. His haggard look and stooped posture goes miles in conveying his deep sense of loss. Richard Matheson's novel,the original source, was set in Los Angeles. But this film was lensed in Italy. I think the move across the pond was beneficial in creating its creepy atmosphere. The locations chosen reveal streets, cemeteries, and buildings of worship that all look a bit strange to the American eye. Even the trees and cars come across as being from another land. Not the United States. But a world where the dead could walk alongside the living. The undead shuffle along like patrons in an after-hours club, but they are still ghostly and menacing. They lust, like vampires, after the blood of Price. He in turn spends long hours and endless days wielding a mallet and stake like Barry Bonds. Only later will Price discover the secret behind the plague and his ultimate fate. He cheated science but in the end he payed the final price.