This is a two-part review, as I read both the book and watched the movie this week. I’ll start off with the book. The story is narrated by Robert Neville, who starts off by telling us how he avoids the vampires that try to break into his house every night. As the story unfolds, we learn more about how this situation came about and how he is the only survivor of this cataclysmic event. What I found interesting was how Neville became immune to the vampirus germ.

Matheson wrote this book so well that I almost felt as though I was there with Neville as he drinks himself into a stupor each day in order to deal with the pain of his losses and the utter isolation he feels because he is the only human being left alive on the planet. Although there are several horrific moments in the story, I felt that I Am Legend was more poignant and literary. The reader is taken on a tour of this man’s psyche as he tries to understand what happened and if he can “cure” the vampires.

Because I Am Legend is a novella, the publisher decided to tack on several short stories, which I thought were completely unrelated to the main theme of the book. For instance, there was a short story about a woman who was attacked by a rare “hunter” doll. It didn’t matter to me that these stories were well-written; I was expecting a continuation of the main story, or, at the very least, a vampire theme. I returned the book to my bookcase, content that I had read what I had set out to read. Despite that quibble, I highly recommend this book because it not only makes you feel, but it makes you think.

The Movie

Hollywood almost always hacks up the author’s stories to suit their audience. That’s a given. What they did with I Am Legend was modernize it. The story begins with an interview with a doctor who discovers the cure for cancer in 2012. This “cure” proves deadly to the human race. Robert Neville relives the night he lost his family as he washes his dog, when his stop watch goes off to alert him to board up his house, etc. In the book, he was a plant worker who teaches himself how to use a microscope and to distinguish the characteristics of germs and viruses. In the movie, he is a military colonel who is also a scientist. During the three years of the aftermath, he tries to develop a cure for this condition so he can revive the human race from near extinction.

Will Smith performed excellently in his role as Robert Neville. One particular scene that almost made me cry was when he was standing in a movie store, trying to hold a conversation with mannequins. This scene accomplished the sense of total isolation very well. There’s plenty of action in this movie, as Neville is constantly having to watch out for the rabid vampires, who reminded me of the caricature of Pink Floyd’s The Wall–huge, gaping mouths with beady little eyes. To say any more would risk spoiling the movie. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, go see it.