People like to make fun of Charlton Heston, not just because of his personal views, but also because of his acting. Honestly he was not the greatest actor in the world, but you know what, I still liked his movies a lot.
I watched The Omega Man the other night and it made me realize something, Charlton Heston in a period of just a few years made some pretty edgy movies. Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green and The Omega Man. All three are actually decent movies, if you do not mind the campy nature of them.
So, did I like The Omega Man?
I thought it was a pretty good movie, it reminded me a lot of when I read Stephen King’s The Stand. In the 60’s and 70’s biological warfare was something that was on a lot of peoples minds, not that it isn’t now, but more so then. I thought The Omega Man and The Stand really captured the feelings of paranoia well.
For a quick synopsis of The Omega Man, there was a war and a virus wiped out pretty much all of the human race, those that did survive are so light sensitive that they only come out at night. The survivors in LA are lead by a man named Mathias that wants to burn all of the old technology that brought the plague on the world. Charlton Heston’s character was an Army doctor who caught the plague and injected himself with a vaccine in a last ditch effort to survive. So, by day he hunts the Family, and by night the Family tried to kill him in his bunker like apartment.
It turns out there are other survivors that have not been infected with the virus, yet. They know eventually they will also become infected. So Charloton Heston works and creates a vaccine to stop the disease and reverse it in some cases. Once he gets the vaccine made he and the other survivors plan to head for the hills and escape from the Family. This is a 70’s movie, that is all I will say about the ending.
Oddly enough this movie game me the heebee-jeebees, not sure why but it did. I enjoyed it and it made me think about things. If you see it somewhere by all means rent it as it is worth the rental. There is a new version of this coming out this Christmas Season*, I Am Legend staring Will Smith. Hopefully it will be a good movie, but who knows. Maybe it will be truer to the book by the same title. I have not read the book, but it is supposed to be very good.
*I wrote this before I Am Legend came out, yeah, I liked it also.
Tags: biological warfare, Charlton Heston, I Am Legend, Omega Man, Will Smith