English 11 Summative Write
I Am Legend
Nolan Ramsden
January 17th
Based in New York City, A genetic breakthrough in science seems to have discovered a cure for Cancer. As thousands of people acquire the cure, things turn for the worst. The cure turns out to be an infection, which transforms the hosts into crazy cannibalistic Zombies and is highly contagious. Robert Neville, the protagonist, is a scientist immune to this nasty infection. As the city is being evacuated, Robert chooses to stay behind with his dog Sam and run tests on the zombies in hopes of discovering a cure and stopping the infection. As time progresses Robert begins to be more and more outnumbered by the zombies who lurk in the shadows and realizes that his time to discover the cure is running low. Eventually, in a last ditch attempt, Robert discovers the cure and hands it to two young survivors on their way to a safe zone, losing his life in the progresses but potentially saving mankind.
The film maker conveys evil and darkness by bringing many peoples fears to life in the setting. The fact that the zombies are only able to stay in the shadows or come out at night really brings the feeling of being scared of the dark to life. Also because of this, the majority of the actions scenes take place in the darkness, making for a very evil feel. Also he brings out feelings of evil through the characters, because in one specific scene when Sam is infected with the diseases Robert is forced to kill his only companion, showing how dark and evil the infection can be to take his only friend from him. This was also the scene that had the most impact on me for many reasons. First of all, Sam by attempting to save Robert which really impacted me because it shows that even if it was a valiant effort, good doesn’t always win, and in this case, evil was much more powerful. For me, the thought that evil is stronger than good scares me because we always have the feeling of safety knowing that good will prevail, but not in this case. I felt that in this movie it wasn’t exactly the characters that expressed darkness but the fear that they invoked and the pain and hopelessness they brought on Robert, for me that is true darkness.
I connected this film in many ways towards almost every scary movie and their stereotypes that go with them. Like in almost every scary movie, the killer knows where his victims are but the victims don’t know the same. Much like these movies, Robert was always very unsure of the zombies because of the darkness which to me really expresses a dark feeling. Also like many scary movies, the victims are killed off slowly one by one until there is only one that remains. Although there were only two characters to begin with, Robert is left alone and overwhelmed by darkness, he reaches the brink of losing faith and giving up hope, showing that evil will prevail. Fortunately this is not the case in the movie and he is saved by other survivors.
Props to migy10
