by Julian Spivey

More than 40 years before Will Smith found himself stranded as the last man on earth in Frances Lawrence's 2007 film I Am Legend, Vincent Price met the same fate in 1964's The Last Man on Earth, directed by Ubaldo Ragona.

The Last Man on Earth is based on Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend.

Price, known to many as the king of the horror genre, plays Dr. Robert Morgan. Morgan is, to his knowledge, the only surviving person in his desolate city.

The rest of the population had been devastated by a mysterious plague. Morgan survived after he became immune to the bacteria at his work years ago.

However, there is a catch; the population that has been killed off by this plague comes back to life as zombie-like vampires if their bodies aren't burned after death.

Morgan must spend his days hunting and killing the vampires and his nights boarded up inside his home, hidden from the vampires' attempts to end his life.

The story takes a drastic turn when Morgan finds there are other surviving humans when he runs into a woman in the daytime, played by Francia Bettoia. Morgan discovers there is a group of people who were infected by the disease but survived because of a serum that was invented to keep them from fully turning into vampires.

Morgan's encounter with the other living humans leads the story to its shocking and great finale.

A good portion of The Last Man on Earth is shown through an overly long flashback Morgan has about how his daughter and wife contracted the disease and died from it. The lengthy flashback takes away from the film as a whole and definitely should have been condensed. It is so overlong that after a certain period it leaves the audience wondering if the flashback will continue throughout the the film.

While the too-long flashback is definitely the biggest flaw in the movie, the storyline occasionally drags and makes the viewer glad that the film is merely 86 minutes in length.

The Last Man on Earth is definitely not the greatest horror movie of all time, but as far as horror movies go, it is well worth at least one viewing. It is, however, far better than the average cheaply made horror film and most of the modern horror flicks Hollywood is releasing today.

Matheson's novel that provided the inspiration for this film and I Am Legend is also the basis for the 1971 Boris Sagal film The Omega Man.