The Omega Man (1971)

Directed by Boris Sagal. Starring Charlton Heston, Rosalind Cash, Anthony Zerbe, Paul Koslo, Eric Laneuville, Lincoln Kilpatrick. [PG]

Second of three loose adaptations to date of Richard Matheson’s post-apocalyptic novel “I Am Legend” is also the weakest, envisioning Heston as a lone survivor of a biological warfare plague, but he’s not “lone” for long—after escaping from a gang of light-sensitive albino mutants, he falls in with a group of young survivors who help him realize a chance to salvage humanity with a vaccine. Sagal’s erratic direction and a gummy pace spoil a few of the more atmospheric and striking images; the action is unexciting, and too few of the threats feel legitimately ominous. It’s the plague-ravaged freaks who ultimately sink the picture, however—in their silly makeup and even sillier monk-like robes, and with their laughable creed and awkwardly olde-style formal speech, they have all the invention and formidability of the sort of allegorical alien race you’d find in an especially uninspired episode of the old “Star Trek” TV series (just because they’re “thinking zombies” doesn’t make them “interesting zombies”). And, yes, there’s an in-your-face Christ-like pose at the very end in case the message somehow went overlooked. Screenplay by John W. & Joyce H. Corrington.

45/100