Dave Cullen takes a look at the classic 1971 sci-fi movie The Omega Man, starring Charlton Heston. Based on Richard Matheson’s book I Am Legend, the plot centers around a biological war that decimates human life across the planet, leading to a dystopian catastrophe.
Only a few people survive, among them, Robert Neville (Heston). He’s ravaging for food in Los Angeles and fending off mutant beasts.
Here’s a fascinating excerpt from the Dark Journalist’s new documentary X-Protect on the NASA-Nazi Advanced Tech UFO connection to the JFK assassination and CIA psychological warfare secrets. Topics covered include: CIA psychological warfare expert George Joannides, Admiral Bobby Inman, Wernher Von Braun, District Attorney Jim Garrison, Watergate lawyer Douglas Caddy and X-Protect Aerospace assassins.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/k5JfsVrUI4ES/
Here is the 1959 episode of The Twilight Zone mentioned by the Dark Journalist for its veiled references to the X-Project. The episode is called “And When The Sky Was Opened,” and introduces us to three astronauts (played by Rod Taylor, Jim Hutton and Charles Aidman) who return from a mission in a new, supersonic space craft. After they land in the Mojave Desert, their lives strangely begin to change. Soon, they will face erasure from all existence.
The episode was directed by Douglas Heyes and written by Rod Serling, based on a short story by Richard Matheson. Matheson himself would become a prolific contributor to The Twilight Zone. His sci-fi and fantasy stories have inspired many films, including The Incredible Shrinking Man, Omega Man, I Am Legend and Somewhere In Time.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/VoY3Avj2xcVQ/
Today’s Trillion Dollar Movie, Last Man on Earth, has been acknowledged by George A. Romero as one of the major works he “ripped off” in creating Night of the Living Dead. It’s an eerie, atmospheric adaptation of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, the first of four movies based on that same tale, also including The Omega Man with Charlton Heston and I Am Legend with Will Smith. Here, Vincent Price portrays the stoic hero, presumably the last man alive, battling to survive against hordes of zombie-like vampires that awake each night to stalk the Earth.
The premise: A pandemic bacterial plague has wiped out everyone except Price, spared by virtue of having once been bitten by a vampire bat in Panama, inoculating him from the disease. He leads a lonely, monotonous existence, scavenging by day for food and supplies, and seeking out the vampire lairs so he can put them out of their misery by driving wooden stakes through their hearts. At nights, he retreats to a boarded-up sanctuary, blaring jazz records and drinking scotch, while the vampires gather outside, clamoring for his head.
The film’s official tagline sets the tone, “By night they leave their graves crawling, shambling, though empty streets, whimpering, pleading, begging for his blood!”
Britain’s Hammer Films originally acquired the rights to Matheson’s story, but passed along the project to American International Pictures, which produced the 1964 film on a shoestring budget in Rome, Italy. Matheson helped to co-write the screenplay, but withdrew his credit (going under the pseudonym Logan Swanson) after having creative differences with Price. Still, this is probably the one I Am Legend adaptation that best captures the mood of the book, while adhering most literally to its narrative twists.
Some modern viewers find it a little too languid and slow-moving for their tastes, but its groundbreaking importance can’t be denied. Its influence can be seen in practically every zombie movie made over the last half-century, notably Night of the Living Dead, but also Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later. Enjoy and return next Friday for another Trillion ($) Movie.
