Mary
Shelley's THE LAST MAN is finished and ready to ship. Now I
can take a short breather in-between films to relax and enjoy the
holiday season and even go to the movie theater for a change!
It’s
great that I AM LEGEND has done so well at the box office because
it marks a new chapter for the post apocalyptic sub-genre. The British
hit, 28 DAYS LATER merged the last man on earth, post
apocalyptic sub-genre with the zombie sub-genre, and its financial
success seems to have paved the way for a major studio to finally
get I AM LEGEND made in such a big way. That’s an interesting
turn if you enjoy these genres as much as I do.
I
just saw I AM LEGEND on Friday, opening night. I thought it
was a very enjoyable blockbuster. I had a really good time but the
third act abruptly pulled the rug out from under Will Smith, like
he was needed on the set of another movie or something. That left
me with a yearning for the classics.
Saturday,
I popped-in THE LAST MAN ON EARTH into the DVD player and watched
Vincent Price hunting vampires. I‘ve always enjoyed the atmosphere
in that one. Then on Sunday, to top off my post apocalyptic weekend
binge, I popped in THE OMEGA MAN, just to watch my all-time
favorite NRA President blast away at green-friendly hippie mutants
protesting his dependence on fossil fuels. That's always a hoot!
I
also rented something on Sunday called I AM OMEGA from Blockbuster,
expecting to see a low-budget rip-off. It didn’t even bother going
as far as ripping off more than two lines from THE OMEGA MAN,
which was even more disappointing because I think it might have cost
at least thirty-five thousand dollars to produce. With that kind of
money, there really isn’t any excuse for getting that lazy.
If you’ve ever had to make a quasi-action feature on Betacam in
a Pacoima junkyard ever before, you’ll know exactly what I mean
when I say lazy.
All
of these new films have woven zombies, specifically, the Olympic
gold medallist variety, into the post apocalyptic genre. These new,
improved zombies can run faster than a speeding bullet, can leap tall
buildings in a single bound, bend steel in their bare hands, mutated
by a genetically engineered virus gone horribly wrong. Are they the
reanimated dead? No, technically, they‘re super-mutants so there’s
no need to split hairs over details as minor as reanimating the dead
versus mutating the living when they‘re both mindless killing/eating
machines, functionally serving the same purpose in the story. Call
them all zombies if you want, I’ll still understand what you mean.
Personally,
I prefer the reanimated dead variety of zombie, rotting away and missing
some important piece of their anatomy because even though they don’t
move very fast, there’s something inherently creepier about physical
contact with dead, decaying flesh. I think that’s because it reminds
us of our own mortality, just as much as saying hello to your own
femur if you’ve ever had a compound fracture.
Now
all of that “zombie action” has put our movie in the shadow of
zombies. When the News televised a report on us filming Mary
Shelley’s THE LAST MAN last year, they referred to the “Diseased”
in our movie as zombies. I think that’s the expectation all
of these new movies have created. That expectation notwithstanding,
our “Diseased” are not super-mutants nor the living
dead. They’re certainly not zombies of any kind - they’re
just people with a disfiguring disease who still talk, walk, reason,
and compete to survive.
What
makes Mary Shelley’s THE LAST MAN work as a movie isn’t
how scary the “monsters” are, they’re just people with a disfiguring
disease, it’s how mundanely plausible the story is, how easy it
is for society to cannibalize itself within a very short period of
time, under the worst possible circumstances.
Yes,
there is cannibalism in the movie, except it’s not zombies
eating people, it’s more along the lines of the Donner Party, once
the supermarkets are picked clean and the cats and dogs have all been
eaten. That’s frightening because it has happened before throughout
history, even the Bible recounts famines like that in ancient times.
The only two reanimated corpses in the whole Bible I know of are Jesus
and Lazerus, but they’re technically not zombies because... Umm…
Okay, maybe they do qualify, I really don’t know and I don’t want
to start a religious debate.
At
any rate, there are no zombies in Mary Shelley’s THE LAST
MAN, although it is a post apocalyptic movie.
The
editor from www.moviesonline.ca
originally asked me how Mary Shelley’s THE LAST MAN compares
to I AM LEGEND. At the time, I told him that I didn’t know
because I AM LEGEND was still in post production. But now,
after seeing it, I can say that our film has a better crafted story.
Sure,
we had no budget, but what we lacked in money, we made up with in
the writing, in the performances and in local assets that give the
movie more scope than THE OMEGA MAN and THE LAST MAN ON
EARTH put together. We couldn’t afford to block off streets
in Manhattan but we could block off streets in downtown Tucson. That’s
not bad for working without any money.
By
that, I don’t mean we only had a million or a hundred thousand dollars,
our production budget was about $7,500 but you can’t tell what it
cost when you see how many multimillion dollar assets we used in this
movie. We borrowed two Boeing 727 airliners at one point. I think
we must have borrowed at least forty million dollars in on-screen
assets during the filming of this movie. It certainly isn’t a cheap
or small movie, it’s a very imaginative movie that delivers on strong
characters and a story that never fizzles out.
For
people who enjoy things like believable atmosphere, realistic characters,
a plausible story that make sense, and total immersion in a post apocalyptic
world, they’re going to love this film. If they prefer the big-budget,
superhero kind of movie, they probably won’t enjoy this because
the story raises questions and mysteries along the way that are revealed
throughout the story. Personally, I enjoy stories that let me put
the pieces together, especially when the answers are worse than I
expected.
Someone
who liked EL MARIACHI because it was a solid independent movie
that went above and beyond its budget will probably enjoy Mary Shelley’s
THE LAST MAN too because it embodies the full spirit of independent
filmmaking, a movie greater than the sum of its parts.
Another
strength this film has is that it goes where multimillion dollar movies
fear to tread. All of the film incarnations of I AM LEGEND
as well as 28 DAYS LATER tell the backstory of how society
comes apart in brief flashbacks or dialogue. Despite having no budget,
we did the unthinkable - we show that part in a progressive, linear
story, from normality to the collapse of everything. There is no plot
convenience radio or plot convenience TV channel merely talking about
it, we show it, filmed inside a real hospital at the epicenter of
the plague. That’s pretty ambitious stuff to tackle without a budget
but we pulled it off.
Even
if we had a budget, what more is there to add to a scene where the
National Guard empty the corpses in the morgue into a big-rig container
truck at the back of the hospital? We got a big trash container truck,
the National Guard in NBC suits and plenty of corpses on the loading
dock of a real hospital. Once you have all of those elements lit the
way you want in front of the camera, where would an extra fifty thousand
dollars go to improve on that scene? It's not always about the money,
it's how you tell the story in the filmmaking.
That’s
how we filmed every scene, making the most out of every scene from
beginning to end without resorting to filming in junkyards or someone‘s
living room. We took the production anywhere it needed to go to build
a convincing illusion of an empty, post apocalyptic world. There are
at least forty locations in this film to achieve that cinematic illusion.
Because
the movie was made like that, I think it's going to catch a lot of
people off-guard because in addition to all of the unusual production
values, the story has a lot of momentum that carries the audience
through two hours of one surprise after another without any distracting
plot holes. It’s a plausible story with a main character that everyone
can relate to, who encounters other characters who are very serious
about their survival, even though their plans have no chance of succeeding
because they all have the disease, leaving one last man, who could
easily be you or me.
When
we weren’t filming, we were rehearsing so the actors could fully
develop their performances. With a ratio of three rehearsal days to
each filming day, the actors had the luxury of honing their best work
and it shows on screen. That approach stretched production out to
seven months but we were all committed to making the best movie possible,
making the most of what we had to work with.
Now,
I’m just concerned about the timing of the release of this movie.
I’m debating whether to wait for I AM LEGEND to transition
to home video to avoid a backlash from anyone who might erroneously
believe that I just churned out this rascal over the weekend after
seeing I AM LEGEND, or should I just get it out there without
making people who want to see it wait any longer than necessary?
I
don’t know yet. It’s a very tricky marketing decision that could
actually cause more harm than good if people get the wrong impression
by thinking our “zombies“ should talk less and run faster.
I hope people realize that Mary Shelley’s THE LAST MAN is
not a zombie movie at all, it’s not I AM LEGEND nor is
it 28 DAYS LATER. It’s a story about the end of the human
race.
Personally,
I already know our story will stand firmly on its own, once it gets
out there and people can see it for themselves. I also know that while
you can’t please everyone, Mary Shelley’s THE LAST MAN
is going to be someone’s favorite post apocalyptic film for a lot
of good reasons. That thought has kept me motivated to do the best
I possibly can do throughout the many months of backbreaking labor
during production and in the many months laboring alone every waking
hour during post production. I hope you will get a chance to enjoy
this independent movie very soon!
We just watched "I am Legend" yesterday and I do agree. The movie had me completely interested and impressed. However, I had the same impression. It seemed like they ran out of time or Will got bored. It's like when you spend days writing an essay and run out of time. The last 30min really didn't fit with the incredible hype and peak in emotion from before. This really gives "The Last Man" a real chance to save the genre. Let's hope people appreciate its strengths and understand its limitations!