I can remember standing innocently next to my big brother Danny while my mother told us, in no uncertain terms and with a waggling finger, to knock off the monster talk while our cousins were visiting because it scared them. It gave them nightmares.
I clearly remember thinking, "wait... nightmares are a bad thing?"
Up until I discovered zombies, vampire dreams were my favorite. Especially the one where Bela Lugosi slowly, slowly climbed the stairs in my house, stalking me, the edge of his cape held over the bottom half of his face, leaving only his eyes to pierce my soul. A six-year old me holding my ground on the second story landing. Waiting. Waiting. He'd lean in to bite my tender neck, and... aaaand... I'd whip out a chunk of packing foam and intercept his teeth. He'd get indignant and run away.
I loved that dream. I probably had it a half dozen times by the time I was seven. It scared me in the most wonderful way - and even though I was always the victor, waking up was such an incredible relief.
I never dreamed of Frankenstein's monster. Even as a little kid I found him too sympathetic to be scary. In "The Bride of Frankenstein" the tiny characters created by Dr. Pretorius creeped me out - especially when the King escaped from his jar. That really scared me, but the creature made me sad.
By the time I'd reached adulthood, I'd watched and re-watched nearly every version of Dracula ever made and read the novel twice. And while each version alluded to the Count's vast loneliness, his desire for companionship, I always found him to be a monster. Where Frankenstein's creature didn't kill those he wished to befriend (well, intentionally, at least), Dracula stole the lives of his brides, turning them to monsters as well, and stole the sanity of his human companion, Renfield, promising him immortality, but denying it in the end. Dracula was prideful and arrogant. That makes it hard to feel sorry for him - regardless of how dapper Frank Langella was in 1979.
Some time in the early 2000's I finally got around to reading the novella that inspired Charleton Heston's oh-so-incredibly-embarrassingly-dated film "The Omega Man". God bless Mr. Heston, but his over-acting really sucked the scare out of that movie for me.
Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, however, was one of the few books that kept me planted in my seat from cover to cover. Robert Neville, the last living man on earth, is surrounded by what is apparently a new race of beings, blood sucking, half-witted night-dwellers, intent on Neville's destruction. We follow him during daylight hours as he creeps into homes and apartment buildings to destroy his former neighbors, rage with him as he bears endless nights filled with the taunting cries of the former-humans who surround his home, depriving him even of rest. We witness the loss of his beloved wife, and are consumed by his loneliness.
By the end, it's apparent that Neville will lose to this new race of humanity - beings far lesser than mankind had been, stupid, and seemingly wandering in circles in their own quest for survival, and yet utterly enticing in their presence (especially the women). He's clinging to life and the memory of what his now-extinct race used to be. They want him dead because he's bent on their destruction; wandering from house to house by day, dragging them from their slumber only to drive stakes through their hearts and drop them into a pit.
In the end Robert Neville realizes what he has become in the terrified eyes of the new order, summed in the novella's final three words:
I am legend.
Those words hit me in the gut as it occurred to me that I'd just read what was essentially the last days of Dracula's illustrious and noble people, leaving him alone in a sea of lesser beings bent on his destruction. Suddenly I found not just sympathy for Dracula, but also a deep well of empathy.
In light of everything that goes on in "real life," it may sound ridiculous, but I Am Legend had a profound effect on how I think about my favorite entertainment genre. And again, it may sound silly in light of everything that goes on in "real life," but horror is a coping mechanism that's kind of important to me. Because no matter what's the suck-du-jour when I wake up in the morning, it could be worse. At least there are no zombies.
Thank you Mr. Matheson. Rest in peace.
And on the lighter side of horror...
We came upon this while hiking on West Magnolia this past weekend. While my companions were showing early signs of panic, I pulled out my cell phone to take a picture.
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| Okay, let's be fair, I only took this picture because I'd already seen his hand wiggle. |
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