History Literature / IAmLegend

** It's been said that Creator/GeorgeARomero got his idea for ''Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968'' after reading the book.

* GoMadFromTheApocalypse: Robert notices that several uninfected people behave in a way to fit in with the hordes of vampires ([[UnbuiltTrope the book predates the Zombie Apocalypse trope by ten years]]). One man climbs up a lamp post and jumps off like he expects to turn into a bat, and breaks his neck, for example.

* NotDistractedByTheSexy: It's stated that some of the female vampires will expose themselves in an attempt to lure Neville out. He doesn't take the bait.

''None'' of these movies used the ending of the original novel: the first (starring Vincent Price) is the only one even close to rest of the story, with the others being comparatively loose adaptations.

* ApocalypseHow: Around level 3 or 4, depending on how many types of animals aren't affected by the bacteria. [[spoiler:The revelation that some of the infected have retained their sanity might push it back to level 2. Maybe]]

* GunsAreWorthless: Bullets only make entry holes, quickly "glued back" by the fluid the vampires are full of, making small caliber rounds utterly useless in harming them.

* OutlivingOnesOffspring: Your daugher and wife are slowly succumbing to an unknown disease, while you are perfectly fine yourself. Nobody knows what's happening with them and you can only watch as they get worse and worse. Until one day you have to dump your daughter's body into a massive, government-run bonfire due to biohazard. And before you even have any time to recover from that, your wife expires too.

[[quoteright:220:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/iamlegend_cover.jpg]]

* StakingTheLovedOne: [[spoiler:In the book, Neville has to do this to his wife after she had already died from the plague and he buried her body because he couldn't bear to burn her like he had to do to his daughter. She then comes back as a vampire trying to kill him and he has to kill her all over again, this time presumably by staking]]

* MonstrousCannibalism: The vampires outside Neville's house often attacks and feeds on each other.

Essentially the UrExample of the ZombieApocalypse genre, though it predates that particular usage of the word "zombie" by 24 years or so, which was first used in ''Film/DawnOfTheDead1978''. It was adapted to film four different times:

* ''I Am Omega'' (2007) -- a {{mockbuster}} of the above by Creator/TheAsylum.

* CliffhangerCopout: The first part (January 1976) ends with Neville having barely escaped the vampires, but his car and generator are destroyed, severly limiting his mobility during the day and without a working freezer or lights, meaning he won't be able to hold out much longer. Then, at the start of the second part (March 1976), he is right back on his feet, as he found a new car and the generator wasn't so badly damaged after all, requiring only 1 morning to fix it.

* HeelRealisation: A rather poignant one [[spoiler:in the ending, as Neville realizes, with horror, why the people who came after him are about to execute them - he was killing vampires who were beginning to stave off the worst urges, and thus terrified the survivors - and civilization's last hope.]]

* TookALevelInBadass: After a modest TimeSkip, Neville goes from being a normal guy who happens to be immune to the vampire bacteria and copes with alcohol to a muscled vampire-slaying beard-toting badass. in that time he's killed numerous [[spoiler:partial]] vampires and figured out their weaknesses and origin. Though his social skills have gone out the window from so many years of not talking to anyone. He also starts going Jack Bauer on his neighbor, what with the chair and the Torah.

* CliffhangerCopout: The first part (January 1976) ends with Neville having barely escape the vampires, but his car and generator are destroyed, severly limiting his mobility during the day and without a working freezer or lights, meaning he won't be able to hold out much longer. Then, at the start of the second part (March 1976), he is right back on his feet, as he found a new car and the generator wasn't so badly damaged after all, requiring only 1 morning to fix it.

* UnbuiltTrope: Not only is it the UrExample of the zombie apocalypse, but it also deconstructs the notion of the last human survivors. In this world, the monsters have become the norm, and the last human is simply a relic of the past.

* DrivenToSuicide: Few times Robert contemplates just putting himself out of his misery, but one time is especially notable. [[spoiler:After he barely makes it home alive, which was trashed in the meantime by the vampires, he suffers a HeroicBSOD. In the following outburst of rage, he picks up his [[GunsAkimbo two handguns]] - which he knows are worthless against vampires - and goes gun blazing on the porch of his house. When he runs out of ammo and is swarmed, he has a last-second change of mind and crawls his way back inside the house. Not because he wants to live or is afraid of dying, but ''out of spite'']].

* FeralVampires: The vampires generally seem to be more animalistic than the classical depiction, though they still show some flashes of intelligence. The "feral" aspect goes as far as the book being cited as creating the zombie apocalypse genre, despite explicitly having blood-sucking, sun-killed, garlic-fearing vampires.

* SurvivorGuilt: To the point of suffering several [[HeroicBSOD breakdowns.]]

* GreyAndGrayMorality: [[spoiler:Neville argues that the vampire society enjoyed killing the dead vampires. Ruth, however, argues that Neville also enjoyed killing. Ruth rationalizes the brutality as an inevitable part of a new civilization.]]

* HeWhoFightsMonsters: [[spoiler:Neville eventually discovers that some of the infected people have discovered a means of suppressing more dangerous effects of the vampire bacteria, and that many of the vampires he's been killing during his daytime hunts were innocent people. He's pretty much ''their'' monster of legend, thus the title.]]

* ThereIsAnother: [[spoiler:Subverted. When Ruth comes along, it appears that Neville might not be the only unaffected person still alive...And then it turns out that Ruth is TheMole for the partial vampires sent to spy on his defenses. Any and all survivors succumbed to the disease, and only stave it off by way of medicine.]]

* WorkingClassHero: Unlike all the adaptations, where Neville was made into a doctor and even an officer, in the book he's but a factory worker. It's made into a plot point with all the pain, time and effort it takes for him to educate himself and gain proper lab practice, or even operate a microscope efficiently.

''None'' of these movies used the ending of the original novel: the first (starring Vincent Price) is the only one even close to rest of the story.

** [[spoiler:Ben Cortman, suffers an extremely violent death that disturbs Neville.]]
** [[spoiler: From Ruth's perspective, Neville is indeed guilty of murdering sentient members of her species. However, seeing that his actions were merely misguided and he was a decent man, gives him the means of ending his life peacefully]].

* VanHelsingHateCrimes: [[spoiler:Turns out Neville has been killing partially-infected vampires alongside fully-infected ones, and is hunted down and executed for this.]] Oops.

* AdultFear: Your daugher and wife are slowly succumbing to an unknown disease, while you are perfectly fine yourself. Nobody knows what's happening with them and you can only watch as they get worse and worse. Until one day you have to dump your daughter's body into a massive, government-run bonfire due to biohazard. And before you even have any time to recover from that, your wife expires too.

* ApocalypseHow: Around level 3 or 4, depending on how many types of animals aren't affected by the bacteria. [[spoiler:The revelation of coping partial vampires might push it back to level 2. Maybe]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:All of Neville's efforts are for naught, as the vampires have evolved to the point that they can stave off the more feral symptoms of their affliction and have even developed a new society. This means many of the vampires Neville had killed were, in fact, innocent people and he will never be accepted in the society because of this. The only silver lining comes from Ruth giving him a suicide pill to end his life peacefully before the vampires have him executed, but he will forever be remembered as a monster.]]

* NextSundayAD: The book was published in 1954 but it curiously takes place from 1976 to 1979. Normally such a big gap would lead to a TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture scenario with some sci-fi tech mixed into an otherwise contemporary setting, but technology and society seem to have stagnated in the two decades between the date of the book's release and the start of the plague.

f* LastOfHisKind: Neville is apparently the last uninfected human in the world, due to being TheImmune.

* DrowningMySorrows: Initially, Neville is one step away from outright alcoholism as a way to cope with his situation. He recalls how he spent the first few days after his wife died (and he already lost his daughter a few days prior) in alcohol-induced coma, only waking up to get hammered again. He probably did that again after [[spoiler:he had to stake Virginia and bury her ''again'']].

* INeedAFreakingDrink: Neville has a large supply of alcohol and frequently drinks to cope with his situation. It gets particularly bad in part 2, when his research yields no results, only more questions, and he begins to doubt his abilities as a researcher. He stays drunk for 2 days straight, and only snaps out of his depression when he sees an unaffected stray dog near his house.
* LastOfHisKind: Neville is apparently the last uninfected human in the world, due to being TheImmune.