Neville labels it as a “human trial”) does not even hint that there might be an ethical problem with the experiment. The film’s horrific scene of research on a human subject (Col. But viewers who have read the science fiction/horror novel on which this film is based would not be so quick to give Colonel Neville an ethical free pass, for the plot twist that discomfited many of the first readers of Richard Matheson’s novel, I Am Legend (1954), was the startling revelation on the last pages that Neville, the hero (or perhaps “antihero” is the better term), had been the perpetrator of the real atrocities all along – not the vampires that stalked him. The desperation of a solitary survivor of a global pandemic can justify many atrocities, as can the complete absence of any of the infrastructures and institutions of society. Such is daily life for US Army virologist, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Neville, as played by Will Smith in the horror-thriller, I am Legend (2007, Francis Lawrence).įew viewers would think to ask where research protections for human subjects have gone in this movie’s post-apocalyptic landscape. The scientist throws down his gear and retires for the day – another subject, another failure. The camera zooms in on her wide-open mouth, shrieking in agony, before she falls backwards and flatlines. “We may have something here.” The subject abruptly bolts upwards screaming in the hackneyed style of a Hollywood jump scare. Almost immediately respiration, heart rate, and core temperature drop to stable levels. Commencing human trials.” With that news he plunges a syringe into the subject’s IV line. Vaccine test: GA series serum 391 compound 6. Symptoms and tissue samples confirm subject is infected with KV. A man in a white lab coat speaks into his audio recorder: “Extreme reaction to UV exposure. Her chest is heaving with exertion and the heart rate monitor is racing. A subject lays limp on a medical gurney, restrained at the wrists and ankles in an underground laboratory. Skin bakes under the harsh blue light of an ultraviolet lamp.

I. Introduction: One Story over Fifty Years

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