Matheson’s message to the readers is to shown that we are no different from beings with vampirism. The film version portrays the sentiment beings with disease as some sort of savage creatures that heavily rely on brutes and instincts. This sort of distortion to the portral of the text leaves the viewers distant themselves to see the underlying message Matheson is emphasizing. The skin pale, bald, savages illustrated by the film is incomparable to the cunning, merciful sentient beings that Matheson focuses in the book. By vamping the disease ridden beings to a feral beasts, Hollywood twisted the focus of viewers’ understanding that the sentient being is part of the viewers themselves. The sad excuse for an ending not only distances the viewers from seeing the beast we are, but diminish Neville’s role. Neville’s role mainly emphasizes that he is becoming the next creature of fear like “Dracula” not the one to save the human race. Altering the final phrasing, from “I am legend” to “he is legend” reduces the powerful meaning. He is not legend, I am legend.
I think that one the reasons that the director chose to make the vampires less human-like in the movie (besides the Hollywood appeal of doing so) may have been that it distances the viewer from the vampires and helps us to sympathize more with Neville. Also, it makes Neville's self-sacrifice seem much more heroic, because he is saving mankind from monsters and not from itself.
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