In my PAS blog posts, I am going to discuss 8 of my favorite horror movies, varying from science fiction to the classics to plain gory. I have watched my fair share of horror movies, as it is my favorite genre, so why not talk about them? Now before I go on, I will say that there will be a lot of spoilers within these posts so reader discretion is advised…
Starting off with one of the all-time best horror movies, “I Am Legend” directed by Francis Lawrence. This movie is widely known for Will Smith’s performance as the main character, Robert Neville. “I Am Legend” is categorized as a science fiction horror film and inspired by a 1954 book written by Richard Matheson.
For those of you who live under a rock and have not yet seen “I Am Legend”, here is a summary of the plot of the movie: Robert Neville, played by Will Smith, is a scientist and allegedly the last man alive after a man-made virus breaks out and turns humans into bloodthirsty “monsters”. With the company of his dog, Neville strives to create a cure for this virus. The movie focuses on Neville’s journey being the last human alive and living amongst “the dark seekers”.
Anyway, the movie does a decent job of explaining how the virus was created and broke out, but as the movie continues, multiple questions come up. The first scene of the movie is an interview with a woman who explains that scientists created a cure for cancer. Initially this cure DID work, until the people who got the magic cancer cure started turning into inhuman creatures. The following scene jumps to 3 years later with a glimpse of overgrown, abandoned NYC. During the flashbacks that are scattered throughout the movie, you can see NYC in a stage of panic as everyone is trying to escape the island. Neville and his family were personally escorted by police and military officials, not sure if it was because he’s a scientist or was part of the military as it was not explained, but then he was separated from them. This is the reason for why he then lived in solitude for the next few years.
Neville spends most of his afternoons sitting on a pier, playing a recording on the radio of him calling to any survivors, but has no success. The next event on his daily agenda is testing on rats to find a cure. He tries on multiple occasions to capture a “dark seeker”, and eventually gets one to test on. Neville’s trial cures did work on said dark seeker, but we never find out if it fully cured it.
The “creatures” that the humans turn into are also said to be vampires. I did not get this impression at all, besides the fact that they only roam at night. Also, it was not clearly explained how Neville is somehow immune to this plague that has killed or turned 99% of the human race. Later on in the movie, viewers are introduced to a woman and a boy who save Neville from being killed, but my question is, how did they get there? In the scenes where Neville is waiting at the pier, it is shown that all bridges and roads leading to NYC are destroyed.
With all the questions and inconsistencies aside, I still believe it is one of the best horror movies I have ever seen. It keeps you on your toes but won’t keep you up at night.