Panic in Year Zero and
The Last Man on Earth

MGM could have simplified this Midnite Movie Double Feature by changing Panic's title to The Last Dad on Earth. The film starts out with a child's worst nightmare: dad wakes everyone up at 3:50 AM for a vacation at the old fishing hole. As the family hauls their trailer away from the still-sleeping Los Angeles, a father's worst nightmare occurs with a big flash in the rearview mirror. World War III has begun and he has to save his family.

Not only does Ray Milland play the gruff Nuclear Holocaust father, he directed the film. Since an AIP budget doesn't cover major special effects, Milland keeps the story focussed on the family. A decade ago, this movie was mocked as a relic of the Cold War but, in the wake of Sept. 11th, Panic can be seen as a Homeland Security Department training film for the 21st century. It deals with the breakdown of society, exploring how far we'll go for protection from an invisible enemy and our fellow Americans.

Milland nails the fears of the apocalypse in front and behind the camera. He even gets a good performance out of Frankie Avalon (as his son). For all the limitations he had to contend with, Milland creates an effective vision of the future that today's pundits regularly predict on Fox News.

The Last Man on Earth is one of the leading public domain titles. If you have any PD horror collection, you've got a copy. So why would you want to pay a few extra dollars to nab another? So you can see it in its proper Cinemascope ratio. Plus, the print looks gorgeous compared to the scratched up library prints on the previous $1 DVD editions.

Price is the only person to avoid a plague that swept the world turning humans into zombie-vampires. During the day, he rules the ruins of Rome, but at night they come after him. Unlike the bitter performance of Heston, Price plays the character as a man weary of the world who now walks alone in the hopes that he's not the last of humanity.

The best way to describe Last Man is The Omega Man with Vincent Price stalking Italy instead of Charlton Heston cruising around Los Angeles. They're both based on Richard Matheson's novel "I Am Legend." While Matheson wrote the script for Last Man, he explains that he used a fake name (and why) in a video interview that is the disc's main bonus feature.

This is an essential tandem of apocalyptic cinema that is required viewing every time the Homeland Security Department raises the terror warning to orange. -- Joe Corey