Panic in Year Zero/Last Man on Earth (1962)

Editor's Note PANIC IN YEAR ZERO: A nuclear attack leaves Los Angeles in chaos and ignites panic throughout the city. Trying to escape the disaster, a family heads for their usual vacation spot only to encounter a group of hoodlums along the way. THE LAST MAN ON EARTH: Based on Richard Matheson's SF thriller I AM LEGEND, THE LAST MAN ON EARTH is about a man who survives a global plague only to be stalked nightly by zombielike victims who call out his name. Vincent Price stars as Robert Morgan, a scientist who tried desperately to come up with a cure for an airborne virus that was killing people around the globe. Although he could not develop a serum in time to save his family, he himself seems to be immune from the disease. Thus, he is left to wander the streets by day, staking zombies, then barricading himself in his house each night as the zombies try to break in and kill him. Price is excellent in the role, going about his horrible business as if it were just another day: waking up and eating breakfast, putting on a suit, calmly staking the zombies, making dinner, listening to records at night. But when he suddenly sees what looks like another living soul out in the daylight, his world is suddenly turned inside out.

	Emma Danieli
	Franca Bettoia
	Frankie Avalon
	Giacomo Rossi-Stuart
	Jean Hagen
	Mary Mitchel
	Ray Milland
	Vincent Price
	Ray Milland - [Panic] Director
	Ubaldo B. Ragona - [Man] Director

The Austin Chronicle 8 of 10
[Man] Based on a story by Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, later remade into the rather limp Omega Man with Charlton Heston), The Last Man on Earth shows its low-budget seams at times...It's nonetheless a chilling study of loneliness and an acting tour de force for Price as the last survivor of a dead race, and not exactly the feel-good movie of 1964. - Jerry Renshaw