10 Best REVERSE Horror Movies
3. The Last Man On Earth (1964)
Based on Richard Matheson's 1954 classic science fiction horror novel I Am Legend, The Last Man On Earth remains the most faithful adaptation to date. It is also possibly the most literal, and above all, intentional reverse horror to feature here.
As a mysterious virus sweeps across the globe, infecting millions, scientist Robert Morgan has almost lost hope. The living, now transformed into lumbering yet sentient vampires (think Night Of The Living Dead with talking zombies) are now the dominant life on the planet. By day Morgan destroys the infected and barricades his home, by night, he is a prisoner. Garlic and mirrors protect him and despite the loss of his wife and child, he still has hope for a cure.
When he encounters Ruth, a 'survivor,' he learns that she has been sent there to spy on him by the vampire population, now the top of the food chain and surviving by means of a vaccine that keeps the disease at bay. Robert desires to join them but Ruth explains what he has become to them:
"You can't join us... You're a monster to them. Why do you think I ran when I saw you? You're a legend in the city; moving by day instead of by night... leaving bloodless corpses. I'm supposed to keep you here until they come... "
This is the one and only time a movie has come close to the mic drop of Matheson's novel climax. The stakes have been completely switched - he is now the monster, the last man on Earth, a legend indeed.