Killer B's on DVD: I Am Omega

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Will Smith and the cast and crew of I Am Legend should be tickled pink about this. The blatant knock-off is a longstanding tradition of the B-movie world, and occasionally the practice can spawn something noteworthy. Everybody's heard of Godzilla, right? Well, the Big G started life as an imitation of The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and has since become a pop culture icon while The Beast (which sported some very cool stop-motion animation from Ray Harryhausen) is largely forgotten by the general public. Lucio Fulci's Zombie has become a gore classic, despite going so far as to call itself Zombi 2 in its native Italy in an attempt to make people think this was a sequel to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, which had been released there as Zombi. On the other hand, Carnosaur has become little more than a footnote in monster movie history, despite its attempts to cash in on the buzz surrounding Jurassic Park.

This is the newest release from The Asylum, and its resemblance to I Am Legend, and more specifically to The Omega Man, the previous film adaptation of Richard Matheson's novel, is stupefyingly obvious. The Asylum has become the modern torch-bearer of the B-movie knock-off with the likes of Snakes on a Train, Transmorphers and AVH: Alien Vs. Hunter all hitting DVD at a time convenient enough to take advantage of the big budget publicity machine of the films they are imitating.
Mark Dacascos, star of Brotherhood of the Wolf and the TV series The Crow: Stairway to Heaven plays Richard (though for some reason the credits call him "Renchard"), apparently the only survivor of some kind of zombie plague. The details of the apocalypse are never explained, and actually showing the collapse of society is well beyond the film's budget. Richard spends his nights defending his fortified house from the infected, hideous snarling creatures who may or may not be actual zombies. He spends his days systematically planting explosives throughout the city. There's a large hive of the infected in the downtown area and he hopes to wipe them out when his timed charges go off simultaneously. Richard also goes to a lot of effort to imitate Charlton Heston's character from The Omega Man. Despite being the last man on earth he still dresses for dinner, converses with a mannequin, and he hallucinates a radio broadcast much in the same way that Heston's character imagined he heard dozens of pay phones ringing at once.

When not doing any of this stuff he's mourning his wife and son, tossing down prescription drugs like they are Tic-Tacs and checking his computer (the last man on earth is a Mac user) for incoming video transmissions. It's safe to say the Internet will not survive the apocalypse, so I'm a little fuzzy on how this works, even with the big satellite dish. When Richard finally receives a video communique from a woman named Brianna, her resemblance to his wife is uncanny (both women are played by Jennifer Lee Wiggins). She's stranded in the downtown area and requests a rescue, which Richard refuses. Soon a grubby look pair of mercenaries show up on Richard's doorstep and draft him into helping with Brianna's rescue. It seems she is somehow immune to the zombie virus and her blood could lead to a cure. These fellows come from a place called Antioch, and with this many survivors kicking around, Richard's position as Omega is apparently downgraded to around Omicron or so.

A word of advice if you're going to shoot a post apocalyptic drama: buy a tripod. Shots of a seemingly abandoned city (presumably shot early on a Sunday morning) can set the mood nicely, but shaky hand-held camera work reinforces the knowledge that someone must be holding the camera and blows the illusion. The same goes for the streetlights that are plainly visible in a few shots. Also, somewhere along the way someone thought it would be a good idea to have Richard use his martial arts skills against the infected. Since the usual zombie rules apply here, their bite and blood are infectious so fighting in close quarters is just plain stupid, though not quite as stupid as the decision to escape through zombie infested territory in a convertible with the top down. The film starts off with a modest amount of promise, but when the story veers away from the film it's aping things quickly go down hill. I Am Legend just had a record breaking opening weekend, and I think your post apocalyptic dollar will go a lot farther with the official version rather than this one.