55 Years Ago, Charlton Heston Proved He Was The King Of Depressing Sci-Fi Madness
Is The Omega Man a spiritual prequel to the Apes films?
The weirdest thing about The Omega Man isn’t just the arresting, depraved imagery or the depressing, sometimes impressionistic take on an apocalyptic world. Instead, it’s strange to think that for six years, Charlton Heston was grappling with the end of the world, over the course of four movies: Planet of the Apes (1968), Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), The Omega Man (1971), and Soylent Green (1973). In the first two ape films, Heston played Taylor, a depressed astronaut who finds himself on a future Earth in which humanity basically destroyed itself. In The Omega Man, Heston plays Robert Neville, one of the last survivors of the human race after bioweapons have wiped out most of humanity. In Soylent Green, Heston was Robert Thorn, the only guy who knew the horrible truth about a new food source.
Of these four oddly connected sci-fi films, The Omega Man is easily the least famous, but oddly, perhaps the most fun to rewatch. Like the Apes films, there’s some goofy makeup on the mutants who represent the survivors of humanity, but by and large, The Omega Man is slightly easier to buy, because the sci-fi hyperbole that drives the film essentially comes down to seeing a nearly empty Los Angeles. And, in this way, The Omega Man walked so Pluribus could run. 55 years later, after its release on August 1, 1971, The Omega Man holds up surprisingly well, especially if you view it for what it was: Essentially a feature-length Twilight Zone episode.
Loosely based on the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson — who wrote several classic Twilight Zone episodes — The Omega Man tells the story of Neville, a guy who was testing various vaccines when germ warfare broke out. This prevented him from becoming one of the various mutants, who, in LA, have coalesced into a creepy cult, rejecting all technology and the ways of the old world. Again, there are shades of the humans living underground in Beneath the Planet of the Apes with this group, but visually these mutants also feel like what the Morlocks from The Time Machine would look like if they talked calmly and wore sunglasses.
All other versions of this story, from Matheson’s novel to the 1964 adaptation The Last Man on Earth, to the 2007 Will Smith-led film I Am Legend, depict the survivors of the human race as transformed, vampiric creatures. This makes The Omega Man the weird adaptation of the bunch, since its monsters are more laid-back, which is both the best and worst thing about the movie. Best, because the movie isn’t trying too hard to imagine that human beings could turn into a creepy cult that would burn technology and try to crucify Charlton Heston. But also, the white wigs and sunglasses look straight-up bad and indicate the movie isn’t trying too hard.
Charlton Heston and Rosalind Cash in The Omega Man.
But this all works more or less because the overall vibe of The Omega Man is that nearly every single character, save for one, is exhausted. People are tired of this post-apocalyptic world, and it shows. That is, until Neville meets Lisa, played by the excellent Rosalind Cash.
As another survivor, Lisa provides a counterpoint to Neville’s loner vibe, but she’s not weak or depressed. After rescuing Neville from the mutants, she gets what might be one of the best lines in the movie, when she lets Neville know he better not double-cross her: “If you just have to play James Bond, I’ll bust your ass.”
Cash’s performance brings life and vitality into The Omega Man, which is part of what makes it stand out in the strange quartet of Heston’s dark sci-fi movies. Lisa becomes the true representative of humanity, and the best reason the audience has for hoping things turn out all right. She prevents The Omega Man from feeling like a sluggish, moralizing sci-fi TV episode, and more of an escape movie, in which the details and philosophy behind the apocalypse are less important than surviving it.
Today, The Omega Man might seem silly at certain turns, and its score, from Ron Grainer — famous for creating the Doctor Who theme and scoring The Prisoner — sometimes feels like it's making fun of what you’re watching. But, then again, the slightly jazzy, self-aware score is like the movie itself. It’s not trying to convince you of reality per se, but rather to propel you forward to the next scene.
Because if you think The Omega Man is slow at first, just wait until Cash appears with her shotgun and gets Heston on that motorcycle. When Grainer’s brassy, slightly disco-esque score kicks in, and the pair motor away from the oncoming mutant horde, it’s hard not to love what comes next.
