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Rating: "When everyone has become monsters, it's the only normal one who is the real monster"
Warning: the review reveals the plot and ending.
Soon we'll be invaded by the latest film starring Will Smith, "I Am Legend," based on the namesake novel by Richard Matheson first published in 1954. Many will remember the story of the last man left alive on earth, while the rest of humanity destroyed by a virus has transformed into a sort of undead population that only awakens at night. Some may also have seen the questionable film adaptation made in 1971 by Boris Sagal with Charlton Heston in "The Omega Man", where the actor (the mythical president of the National Rifle Association!) wanders during the day between the skyscrapers of a deserted American metropolis to hunt down the "different" with the machine gun.
Few know that the first to bring that apocalyptic novel to the screen were we Italians. Yes, exactly. In 1964 the film was supposed to be produced in England by Hammer, the house specialized in horror films, but it was assigned to Roger Corman's A.I.P., which set it in Rome, entrusting the direction to Ubaldo Ragona, a skillful operator turned director, and the protagonist role to Vincent Price. And it was a stroke of luck, not from an economic point of view, of course, but from that of cinephile culture.
And indeed: imagine a film shot with little money in grainy black and white, where Dr. Robert Morgan is forced into a solitary existence by hanging garlic necklaces and mirrors on the doors of his villa, wandering during the day on his Chevrolet station wagon through the deserted streets of the modern EUR district of Rome (it was meant to give the impression of an American metropolis). From the abandoned Fiat 500s, lifeless bodies protrude, which he patiently impales with wooden stakes sourced from the abandoned hardware store, only to rush home and barricade himself before dark.
He must do so because those very bodies lying on the streets awaken at night and surround his villa, threatening him with death, just like his former friend Ben, who is among the most agitated in calling him out. A virus has spread with the wind, and fortunately, he is the only one immune. Or unfortunately? Yes, because Robert is about to go mad with his monologues addressed solely and always to himself and the memories of his destroyed family that haunt him. But he will make a great discovery at his expense: there are not only the now damned vampires that besiege him at night. And so, in an apocalyptic finale, he is forced to take refuge in a church, and just like an unwilling messiah, he must sacrifice his blood from the altar for the "good" of the new hybrid race that lives with the "disease."
Absolutely ahead of its time, even George A. Romero with his "Night of the Living Dead" four years later owes much to that splendid image of filthy, stupid, and staggering zombies that besiege the house. At best, the film with Will Smith will scare us; this one, however, leaves a bitter taste, permeates a subtle anguish that is already palpable in the reality of my city submerged in garbage for months.
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