Famously bad version of Richard Matheson's brilliant I am Legend actually isn't that bad, mostly because it's reasonably faithful to the novel, even though Matheson used a nom de plume for the script. Why didn't they shoot Matheson's script straight up? To be sure its not very well made - the editining is all over the place, the performances are poor, the direction slap dash (see how they fail to make anythig much out of the dog episode), there is too little of the non-evil vampires, and Vincent Price is miscast in an Everyman sort of role (he was too big an actor to play ordinary people, was Price, at least in the hands of this director - his performance just doesn't work). But the story is so strong it does hit some home runs: the concept of Price going around killing people in the day, his flashbacks to losing his family, scenes of plague overtaking the world, Price's realisation he's been killing "good people". I found it surprisingly enjoyable and made me wish they'd do this story right. I was also surprised how much Night of the Living Dead ripped it off, complete with someone burying a loved one then having said loved one rise from the dead and knock on the door.(See the film here)
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