History Literature / IAmLegend

* DarkestHour: [[spoiler:Neville's handwatch stopped. It's past dusk. The vampires already left their hideouts, while he tries to reach home. Which he left wide open, expecting to return few hours ago]].

* 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 [[BadassBeard 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.

* 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 zombie apocalypse genre, despite explicitly having blood-sucking, sun-killed, garlic-fearing vampires.

* ZombieApocalypse: Pretty much the UrExample, despite being written fourteen years before [[Film/NightOfTheLivingDead1968 the modern pop culture zombie]] was introduced.

* FeralVampires: The vampires generally seem to be more animalistic than the classical depiction, though they still show some flashes of intelligence.

* 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 for all intents and purposes the book's 1976 seems to be exactly like 1954 but with a lot more vampires.

* 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 from him to educate himself and gain proper lab practice to even operate microscope efficiently.

* 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 for all intents and purposes the book's 1976 seems to be exactly like 1954 but with a lot more vampires.

* DownerEnding: Neville, due to killing [[spoiler:partial vampires]], is about to be [[spoiler:executed. The only silver lining comes from Ruth giving him a suicide pill to end his life peacefully, but he will forever be remembered as a monster by the new sentient species of vampires.]]

* DownerEnding: Neville, due to killing [[spoiler:partial vampires]], is about to be [[spoiler:executed. The spy he fell in love with gives him a suicide pill to end his misery.]]

* GenreSavvy: ZigZagged. Neville knows and tests ''some'' of the folk remedies against vampires. But it still took him few months to realise [[spoiler:it's easier and more efficient to just drag comatose vampires out into open for sun to kill them]]. He face-palms himself upon figuring this out.

* DrowningMySorrows: Initially, Neville is one step away from outright alcoholism as a way to cope with his situation. He recalls how he spent first few days after his wife died (and he already lost his daughter 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'']].

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* AlasPoorVillain: [[spoiler:Ben Cortman, suffers an extremely violent death that disturbs Neville.]]

Essentially the UrExample of the ZombieApocalypse genre, though it predates that particular usage of the word "zombie" by 28 years or so, which was first used in ''Film/DawnOfTheDead1978''. It was adapted to film four different times:

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A 1954 novel by Creator/RichardMatheson. Set [[AfterTheEnd after an outbreak of a viral plague]] that turns both living and dead into creatures resembling vampires, the plot follows LastOfHisKind Robert Neville. An immune scientist and survivor, Neville spends his days hunting vampires, scavenging and [[DyingAlone struggling with loneliness]], and the nights being taunted by undead vampires that keep swarming outside his house.

* DrowningMySorrows: Initially, Neville is one step away from outright alcoholism as a way to cope with his situation. He recalls how he spent first few days after his wife died (and he already lost his daughter 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 burry her ''again'']].

** Willys Jeep station wagon is Neville's vehicle of choice. [[spoiler:It [[DestroyTheProductPlacement gets smashed]] later, after which he replaces it with exact same model]]. Ironically, the car was discontinued from production in 1965, while the book opens in [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture 1976]].

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* DarkestHour: [[spoiler: Neville's handwatch stopped. It's past dusk. The vampires already left their hideouts, while he tries to reach home. Which he left wide open, expecting to return few hours ago]].

* TheDreaded: Neville is this to the Vampires. [[spoiler: Even when captured, many are terrified just by the sight of him.]]
* 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'']].
* DrowningMySorrows: Initially, Neville is one step away from outright alcoholism as a way to cope with his situation. He recalls how he spent first few days after his wife died (and he already lost his daughter 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 burry her ''again'']].
* {{Flashback}}s: This time showing how his wife succumbed to the infection, and forced to drive to a government bonfire to burn his dead daughter. [[spoiler: And then when Virginia came back to him as a vampire]].
* GenreSavvy: ZigZagged. Neville knows and tests ''some'' of the folk remedies against vampires. But it still took him few months to realise [[spoiler: it's easier and more efficient to just drag comatose vampires out into open for sun to kill them]]. He face-palms himself upon figuring this out.

* 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.]]
* GunsAkimbo: Deconstructed. In one of his {{Sanity Slippage}}s, Neville picks up his two pistols and goes gun blazing on his own porch. [[spoiler: He is almost instantly swarmed, even before running out of bullets, and barely makes it alive back inside]].

* HumansAreCthulhu: [[spoiler: How the partial vampires view Neville. In their eyes, he's an unstoppable monster from the old world slaughtering dozens of innocents during the days for seemingly no reason at all, and through his deeds, he becomes a monster of legends the same way vampires were for the humans, hence the title.]]

-->[[spoiler: The watch had stopped]].

** Willys Jeep station wagon is Neville's vehicle of choice. [[spoiler: It [[DestroyTheProductPlacement gets smashed]] later, after which he replaces it with exact same model]]. Ironically, the car was discontinued from production in 1965, while the book opens in [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture 1976]].
** Sears is the main source of tools for Neville - he even loots a lathe from it. [[spoiler: The lathe gets wrecked along with the wagon]].

* 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]]

* YankTheDogsChain: When he comes across an apparently unaffected dog out in the sun, Neville practically gets taken over with CutenessProximity as he plans to win over the thing and keep it as a pet. [[spoiler: It doesn't end well.]]

* 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 story point with all the pain, time and effort it takes from him to educate himself and gain proper lab practice to even operate microscope efficiently.

* {{Flashback}}s: This time showing how his wife succumbed to the infection, and forced to drive to a government bonfire to burn his dead daughter.
* GhostCity: Los Angeles.

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

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