This story is credited as being the first to put forth the idea of vampirism as a disease. Most modern vampires at least pay a small tribute to this angle, though not all explicitly mention it. I’m not sure that beings like Dracula would’ve thought of their condition as ‘infection’, though it was still transmitted by the blood one way or the other.
Vampire the Masquerade Role Playing Game and some stories of Brian Lumley in the Necroscope series use this idea to create a virus by which the undead can manipulate their very flesh and bones and warp them into other shapes. In the Masquerade, this is the Discipline called ‘Vicissitude’, and is transmitted through an ‘infected’ vampire’s blood to other vampires and even humans and animals. Some fear the infection as a taint, while others welcome it. I don’t know much about the Necroscope stuff, I haven’t read those books yet.
The two greatest themes of this story are loneliness and the power of the outsider to affect a society.
We feel the character’s loneliness from the first moment we meet him. He’s alone and desperate for company, which drives him to sometimes scary actions, like when he imprisons the woman in his house so he can talk with her. It shows the lengths to which being lonely can drive a person. We all go a little mad sometimes, and those who are alone do it a little faster than the rest.
The legend angle, for me, doesn’t work as well. I think Matheson manages to successfully impart the loneliness theme more effectively, because we only have the story from one character’s point of view, and that character is outside of the now dominant society. Granted, that is where monsters dwell, but I don’t feel as if I get the full affect of his actions on the new society. Maybe I’m just too much with the monsters to see it. I think because we follow the outsider in this story, we can’t appreciate his effect on the society from a firsthand perspective, because he sees what he’s doing as good and essential, while the infected view his actions as murderous and wrong and scary as hell. There have been three movies made from this tale, and despite the fact that the version with Will Smith gets the most boos for not following the story, the other two don’t follow much more closely.
At least Smith’s version of the character had a lab that seemed capable of actually finding a cure. It falls flat on the creation of a legend aspect, and most people ding the film for that, and rightly so. But I think it does a fabulous job of capturing the loneliness aspect, and just how crazy it can make someone to believe they are the last human on earth.
I think what scares me most is that they’re actually considering a sequel, or by some reports, a prequel, considering that he dies at the end of the theatrical version. There is an alternate ending where he survives. But I think either one would really water down the story’s impact, though I’m sure Hollywood doesn’t give a shit about that. If it ever happens, which it might not, I’ll be interested to see either what the prequel story could be (as they explained most of it in the movie) or how they bring him back from his messy death at the end of the film, alternate ending notwithstanding.
There’s also a direct to DVD release called ‘I am Omega’, but I only mention that as something to avoid.
