The 2007 movie that sees Will Smith fend off mutant vampires has been used as a justification not to receive the Covid-19 vaccine
![I Am Legend: how the vampire horror became an anti-vaxxer movie](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/f0eb8bf0f133af3ac1d29f540db15c1e8633f9a6/0_225_3504_2102/master/3504.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=9d1008adbb21bc29c3cd93c30881ac1f)
When it comes to the pandemic, plenty of films have had their turn in the spotlight. Contagion was one of them, for contextualising the scale of the virus and teaching everybody what an R number was. So was Jaws, with Amity Island’s safety-denying mayor, Larry Vaughn, serving as an analogue for any authority figure who was skeptical about the concept of lockdown.
To some extent, those films make sense. In times of great uncertainty, we reach for the familiar to guide us. But sometimes that’s a bad idea. Because sometimes what they reach for is the Will Smith movie I Am Legend.