Richard Matheson

Writing

Richard Matheson

Born — Died

1926-02-20 — 2013-06-23

Place of birth

Allendale, New Jersey, USA

Known for

Writing

Credits

38 titles

Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is best known as the author of I Am Legend, a 1954 science fiction horror novel that has been adapted for the screen three times, the first of which, The Last Man on Earth, was co-scripted by him and starred Vincent Price. (The other two adaptations are The Omega Man with Charlton Heston and I Am Legend with Will Smith.) Matheson also wrote 16 television episodes of The Twilight Zone, including "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" and "Steel", as well as several adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories for Roger Corman and American Interna…

Known for

Film credits

Undated · 1 titles

Behind the camera

Duel poster
7.4

Traveling businessman David Mann angers the driver of a rusty tanker while crossing the California desert. A simple trip turns deadly, as Mann struggles to stay on the road while the tanker plays cat and mouse with his life.

Duel

1971

Somewhere in Time poster
7.5

Young writer Richard Collier is met on the opening night of his first play by an old lady who begs him to "Come back to me". Mystified, he tries to find out about her, and learns that she is a famous stage actress from the early twentieth century. Becoming more and more obsessed with her, by self-hypnosis he manages to travel back in time—where he meets her.

Somewhere in Time

1980

Jaws 3-D poster
4.5

A giant thirty-five-foot shark becomes trapped in a SeaWorld theme park and it's up to the sons of police chief Brody to rescue everyone.

Jaws 3-D

1983

The Last Man on Earth poster
6.6

When a disease turns all of humanity into the living dead, the last man on earth becomes a reluctant vampire hunter.

The Last Man on Earth

1964

Twilight Zone: The Movie poster
6.5

An anthology film presenting remakes of three episodes from the "Twilight Zone" TV series—"Kick the Can", "It's a Good Life" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"—and one original story, "Time Out."

Twilight Zone: The Movie

1983

The Incredible Shrinking Man poster
7.5

A dangerous combination of radiation and insecticide causes the unfortunate Scott Carey to shrink, slowly but surely, until he is only a few inches tall. His home becomes a wilderness where he must survive everything from spiders living in the cellar to his beloved cat.

The Incredible Shrinking Man

1957

The Raven poster
6.3

A magician who has been turned into a raven turns to a former sorcerer for help.

The Raven

1963

Tales of Terror poster
6.7

Three stories adapted from the work of Edgar Allen Poe: 1) A man and his daughter are reunited, but the blame for the death of his wife hangs over them, unresolved. 2) A derelict challenges the local wine-tasting champion to a competition, but finds the man's attention to his wife worthy of more dramatic action. 3) A man dying and in great pain agrees to be hypnotized at the moment of death, with unexpected consequences.

Tales of Terror

1962

Master of the World poster
6.0

A mad genius tries to bomb the world into peace.

Master of the World

1961

The Devil Rides Out poster
6.5

The powers of good are pitted against the forces of evil as the Duc de Richelieu wrestles with the charming but deadly Satanist, Mocata, for the soul of his friend. Mocata has the knowledge and the power to summon the forces of darkness and, as the Duc de Richelieu and his friends remain within the protected pentacle, they are subjected to ever-increasing horror until thundering hooves herald the arrival of the Angel of Death.

The Devil Rides Out

1968

Trilogy of Terror poster
6.3

A horror anthology containing three stories: a female college professor is aggressively pursued by one of her students; a prudish brunette determines that her free-spirited blonde sister is evil; and a woman's night turns upside down after she purchases an ancient Zuni fetish doll.

Trilogy of Terror

1975

Dracula poster
6.2

Dracula is searching for a woman who looks like his long dead wife.

Dracula

1974

Fanatic poster
6.6

A young woman is terrorized by her former fiance's demented mother who blames her for her son's death. Also known as Die! Die! My Darling!

Fanatic

1965

House of Usher poster
6.7

Convinced that his family is tainted by generations of evil, Roderick Usher is hellbent on stopping his sister Madeline’s wedding to prevent the cursed Usher bloodline from expanding. When her fiancé Philip Winthrop arrives at the crumbling estate to claim his bride, Roderick goes to ruthless—even deadly—lengths to keep them apart.

House of Usher

1960

The Legend of Hell House poster
6.6

A team consisting of a physicist, his wife, a young female psychic, and the only survivor of the previous visit are sent to the notorious Hell House to prove or disprove survival after death. Previous visitors have either been killed or gone mad, and it is up to the team to survive a full week in isolation, and solve the mystery of the Hell House.

The Legend of Hell House

1973

The Pit and the Pendulum poster
6.9

In the sixteenth century, Francis Barnard travels to Spain to clarify the strange circumstances of his sister's death after she had married the son of a cruel Spanish Inquisitor.

The Pit and the Pendulum

1961

Loose Cannons poster
5.0

Mac, the two-fisted, savvy cop finds that he's being saddled with a new partner, a known burnout, to work with him on a new and difficult case. The new partner is Ellis, an amazing detective, one who puts Sherlock Holmes to shame with his lightning-fast deductions. But he keeps assuming the personalities of entire casts of Television shows. This can be a problem when people begin shooting at them.

Loose Cannons

1990

Night of the Eagle poster
6.7

A college professor who discovers that his wife has been practicing black magic for years forces her to stop but soon learns the true power of the occult.

Night of the Eagle

1962

The Comedy of Terrors poster
6.5

An undertaker who hasn't had any 'customers' in a long time is forced to pay one year's back-rent. To get money he starts to kill people, which brings absurd results.

The Comedy of Terrors

1964

Trilogy of Terror II poster
5.2

Three tales of terror: in "The Graveyard Rats" lovers murder the woman's older husband and encounter horror when they attempt to rob his grave; "Bobby" is the story of a woman who summons her son back from the dead; and in "He Who Kills" an African doll goes on a murderous rampage.

Trilogy of Terror II

1996

De Sade poster
3.4

The 18th-century French marquis recalls his sadomasochistic experiments and goes to jail for lewd behavior.

De Sade

1969

Dead of Night poster
6.1

This anthology tells three stories: a man buys a car that takes him back and forth through time; a tale of vampires; and a distraught mother asks for her drowned son to come back to life and gets more than she bargained for.

Dead of Night

1977

The Dreamer of Oz poster
7.6

The film is the biography of Frank Baum, the children's book author and creator of the fantasy world Oz.

The Dreamer of Oz

1990

The Young Warriors poster
6.8

In World War II, a tough sergeant is put in charge of a squad of young recruits and assigned to lead them on a mission against the Germans.

The Young Warriors

1967

The Night Strangler poster
6.7

After being run out of Las Vegas, reporter Carl Kolchak heads for Seattle and another reporting job with the local paper. It's not long before he’s on the trail of another string of bizarre murders. It seems that every 21 years, for the past century, a killer murders a certain number of people, drains them of their blood, and then disappears into the night. Kolchak is on his trail, but can he stop him?

The Night Strangler

1973

Amazing Stories: The Movie II poster
NR

This anthology gathers four episodes of the 1985-87 television series "Amazing Stories." Santa Claus (Douglas Seale) gets arrested when a burglar alarm goes off as he's delivering presents. A lonely bachelor (John Lithgow) buys a mysterious doll. A museum thief (Danny DeVito) gives a purloined ring to his wife (Rhea Perlman), unaware that the previous owner's ghost inhabits it, and 75 years after he accidentally caused a train to crash, an old man (Roberts Blossom) waits for his penance.

Amazing Stories: The Movie II

1990

The Beat Generation poster
5.1

A group of beatniks unwittingly harbor a serial rapist. A cop goes after him after his wife is attacked.

The Beat Generation

1959

The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver poster
6.4

A houswife, tired of her everyday routine, makes changes in her hair, her wardrobe and her makeup, and begins to take on the personality of a woman who had died five years earlier.

The Strange Possession of Mrs. Oliver

1977

The Twilight Zone: A 60th Anniversary Celebration poster
10.0

Six episodes of the original series, restored and on the big screen for the first time, and a special retrospective documentary encompass this Fathom Event.

The Twilight Zone: A 60th Anniversary Celebration

2019

No Such Thing as a Vampire poster
NR

Alexis, the wife of Dr. Cheria, mysteriously falls ill, it's believed by the villagers that she is a victim of a vampire. One night, she awakes screaming with blood running from two marks down her neck.

No Such Thing as a Vampire

2026

Now Is Tomorrow poster
7.5

"Now Is Tomorrow" was a pilot for a hosted series from Roncom Telefilms. A military captain is given a new assignment, the high-stress task of making a life-or-death decision for everyone on earth. One by one they wash out from the stress.

Now Is Tomorrow

1958