The Last Man on Earth

Vincent Price plays Dr. Robert Morgan, the apparent sole survivor of a plague that has turned the rest of humanity into vampire-like creatures. By day he hunts them and stakes them; by night he barricades himself inside his home while they swarm outside, calling his name. The film is the first adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel I Am Legend, which later inspired The Omega Man and the Will Smith version. Matheson worked on the screenplay but was unhappy with it and took a pseudonym. Shot in Rome on a low budget, it leans on Price's weary, haunted performance to carry the isolation. The film entered the public domain in the 1980s and is widely considered the most faithful of the novel's adaptations.