Martin (John Amplas), a young man who looks around 20-years-old, boards a train in Indianapolis, Indiana for New York. At night, he breaks into a sleeping car and sedates a woman with a syringe full of narcotics. She struggles, but he tells her not to struggle or be upset because she wont feel pain. After a few minutes, the woman falls asleep, and Martin has sex with the unconscious woman. Afterwards, he slices her wrists with a razor blade so he can drink her blood. The woman bleeds to death in her sleep.
In the morning, the train stops in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where Martin disembarks. He is met by Tata Cuda (Lincoln Maazel) an elderly and hostile old man who claims to be his cousin from the Old World. Together, they travel by another train to the town of Braddock, a dying industrial suburb. They walk to Cuda's large house where he shows Martin his living quarters. Cuda then accuses Martin of being an 84-year-old vampire from his old country. He has taken in Martin because he is family, but tells him, "First I will save your soul. Then I shall destroy you." Martin denies being a vampire and implies that Cuda is merely his uncle rather than his cousin. Cuda then puts up strings of garlic on the doors to his and his granddaughter's room, and then holds up a small cross when Martin approaches him. Martin takes away the cross, and even takes a bite of the garlic mocking these attempts by saying bitterly, "There's no real magic... ever". Cuda tells Martin that he can come and go as he pleases. But he also warns Martin that he will kill him if he kills anyone in Braddock. He also tells Martin to stay away from his granddaughter Christine (Christine Forrest), whom arrives home from her job that evening.
Cuda introduces Christine to Martin, but also warns her to stay away from him. But Christine instead strikes up a friendship with Martin who confides in her about his vampire heritage. When Cuda later confirms Martin's claims to be a vampire, Christine, not surprisingly, refuses to believe either one. She thinks that Cuda and the other members of her family have driven Martin to insanity by making him think that he is a vampire. It is never revealed if Martin really is a vampire, or just a shy and lonely youth with troubled issues. Christine is the only person that Martin gets the courage to talk to. When Christine's boyfriend Arthur (Tom Savini) arrives at the house for dinner, Martin stops talking and backs away despite Arthur's attempt at a conversation. Christine later confides in Martin that she hopes to leave Braddock someday with Arthur, even though Martin points out that Arthur treats her badly and is both verbally and physically abusive towards her.
When Christine sees that Martin won't talk to anyone else, she buys him a phone which he installs in his room. Martin begins to repeatingly call a radio talk show where he describes what it's like to be a vampire. He becomes known on the radio as "the Count" to all the listeners. But the patronizing host (Michael Gornick) thinks he's just crazy.
Martin gets a job at Cuda's grocery store of stocking shelves, hauling boxes around, and even gets to be a delivery boy for some of the customers. One of his customers is a certain Abby Santini (Elyane Nadeau), who becomes taken in with Martin. She is a very friendly young woman who is depressed when she tells Martin that her husband is unfaithful. But Martin still does not have the nerve to talk with her, so she is happy to have someone to confide in with her life problems. Martin phones the radio show host to describe his infatuation with the housewife and senses that she wants to have sex with him. When the radio show host asks Martin if it is a sexual problem that he has involving women criticizing him during sex, Martin replies that he has never had sex with a woman who was awake.
One day, Martin travels by train to outside Braddock to look for victims. At a supermarket, he follows a young woman (Sarah Venable) home to her posh suburban house. He sees the woman's husband (Richard Rubenstein) leave for a long business trip, and Martin decides this would be the right time for more feeding. Martin returns to the house after dark and breaks in through the garage door. But it is Martin who gets the surprise when he bursts into her bedroom to find her in bed with her adulterous lover Lewis (Al Levitsky). After a vicious struggle, Martin jabs both of them with hyprodermic needles with narcotics, and waits for the drugs to take affect. He drags the unconscious body of Lewis from the house to a clump of trees across the street where he kills him by shoving a broken tree branch into his neck and drinks his blood. Martin returns to the house where he has sex with the unconscious woman. But out of compassion and pity, he decides to let her live.
Martin begins to have romantic monochrome visions of his vampire past (real or imagined), where he drained blood from a young woman and was chased through the streets of a nameless European town by a torch-lit mob.
During one Sunday at church, Cuda brings home Father Howard (George A. Romero) who asks him about the possibility of exorcism and demon possession. Father Howard calls upon the elderly Father Zulemans (Clifford Forrest, Jr.) over at Cuda's request. Together, Cuda and Zulemans confront Martin his bedroom and attempt to perform an exorcism on him. At this point, Martin remembers (another real or imaginary flashback), in the Old Country of people trying to perform an exorcism on him, and he flees them. Martin then flees from Cuda and Zuelmas as well. A little later that night, Martin terrorizes Cuda in a children's playground when he puts on a Dracula cape and puts false fangs into his mouth to pretend that he really is a vampire.
One day, Martin finally musters the courage to talk with Mrs. Santini during a routine delivery to her house where he tells her that he's aware of her attempts to seduce him and wants now to have sex with her. After having sex for the first time, Mrs. Santini becomes more depressed for she tells Martin that her husband just left her because she discovered that she cannot bear children, and that her desires towards him are based on sex and nothing else. But Martin wants to stay with her and help her move on with her life. Martin tells the radio show host about his affair with the housewife and that he no longer has the urge to attack other women.
Meanwhile, Arthur meets with Cuda and tells him that he wants Christine to leave town with him so they can get married and start a family. But Christine becomes angry at Cuda when he tells Arthur that insanity runs in their family and he shouldn't consider having children with her. Shortly afterwards, Christine packs up and leaves Braddock for New York with Arthur despite Martin telling her that Arthur is abusive towards her. But her mind is made up. Before leaving, Christine tells Martin that she really has no ill feelings towards him and just wants to make a fresh start with her life. She says goodbye to him and promises to write. But Martin knows that with an abusive and possessive man in Christine's life, she probably won't.
Depressed over losing his one true friend, Martin phones the radio show host and tells him that he's getting "shaky" and wants to go out looking for more victims. That night, Martin travels to a rough crime-ridden area of Pittsburgh and attacks two derelicts in a alley, injecting them with narcotics. He kills one of them by silting the bum's wrist and drinking his blood. Martin is about to kill the second one when a police car shows up and gives chase. Martin narrowly escapes during a long chase on foot which leads from the garbage strew streets and through a local store. Martin runs into an old warehouse where a drug deal is going down. A shootout between the two cops and the three thugs begins where all of them are killed, leaving Martin as the sole survivor who casually walks away from the carnage.
One day, Martin finds Mrs. Santini dead in her bathtub, after she had slit her writs with a razor blade. Martin anonymously calls the police to report the body and leaves. He phones the radio show host one final time to say that he really doesn't need friends or people to talk to for he is his own person. But when Cuda learns about Mrs. Santini's suicide, is mistakenly thinks Martin killed her and made it look like a suicide as he's done before. Cuda walks into Martin's room while he is asleep and kills him by hammering a wooden stake through Martin's heart.
Cuda buries Martin's body in his back garden, while over the closing credits various voices from people are heard talking to the radio show host asking the whereabouts of "the Count".
这种暗黑风格很容易让人迷幻，前半截稍微有些拖沓，但故事完成度很高，想来也是如此，人到了此处，自然就会迷失，塔罗预言一般。
社会塑造的常人与怪物，全程明示，靠置装置景烘托气氛，硬说是拍破碎的美国梦，不如说是没摆脱刻奇的匠气改编，炫技大于叙事。三个应该血肉丰满的女性角色成了剪影，最让人失望的是，剧中女性角色单薄的价值观和背弃男主角的动机，几近丧失人性，这就是托罗认为的新时代女性主义我不接受。而男主角功能性大于一切，模糊过往使男主角“适配一切不幸的幼年”，使劲拍了俩半小时，就是为了结尾那句不得不认命的台词，操控感也太强了吧，何必呢。这哪是拍电影，这是马戏团主与木偶人啊。
最喜欢开头马戏团的一段。视觉上有独特的地方，场景氛围塑造的很不错。男主全程就是自我膨胀，到最后沦为geek。这个片子对精神分析有很多特别批判的地方 哈哈
怎么说呢，陀螺拍非幻想类题材的电影的成功率与他能否克制住自己的恶趣味正相关。如果马戏团的部分稍稍克制些，成片会好很多。
镜头用的很讲究，画面隐喻，伏笔埋得也好。不知道为什么打低分这么多；电影还得在大银幕上才有效果出来。一点都不拖沓。主演很不错。凯特布兰切特和威廉达福的戏很足很足。都是大腕儿。值得冲奥。
电影整体的基调和风格很吸引人，其实故事也不错，只是马戏团的部分明知道作为故事铺垫极其重要但还是觉得冗长，斯坦被贪婪反噬早有预料，捕鸟人终成笼中鸟的结局很棒。
三星半，看在卡司以及服装布景都挺有质感的份上。一个人被自己的野心吞没的故事不新鲜，可以拍得短一点。看完也没明白这译名哪来的。失去自己的孩子对父母来说并不是件容易接受的事，战神里头巧舌如簧的密米尔如此说到。我看过好多类似主题的电影，这部也算其中之一，遇到这样的事，没有人能走出来。明天我那遭遇丧子之痛的领导要回来上班了，我也不知要如何面对他。
寻着liedownplease来看的 我真是看不得电影了
好在铺垫够长，马戏团的戏整整用了一小时，享受极了。不好在离开马戏团后情节有点普通，和铺垫相比收尾太快了。万万没想到在大魔王和小白兔竟然就一场对手戏。
故事很好，可惜表演有点中庸和一般，平铺直叙吧，凯特仍然是抢风头的那一个。
前面又吓人又墨迹，都看困了、好在后面进展迅速，结尾处理的前后呼应、故事的不错，就是男主这张脸总让我感觉是在澳洲驰骋的牛仔，下一秒就要骑马了
2022-04-20
我觉得斯坦就是失败版的哪吒，物理上的弑父（神婆的酒鬼老公某种意义上也是他的父亲）并没有斩断其精神上与父权的联系，社会反而加重了他的“恋父情结”，磨毁了他内心的纯真，从他歧视并谋杀没有男子气概的亲生父亲、送毒酒毒死灵魂父亲且没有听他的劝告开始，他注定是重蹈覆辙的下场，结尾形成一种精妙绝伦的轮回。无法不想到《巴里·林登》，男人真的是被男权毒害了还不自知，被人拐了还帮人数钱。库珀虽然红脖化严重然而我依然可以（为了他的裸体吧），布兰切特表演最佳，什么叫气质美人啊.jpg
私心想要bradley cooper被封杀，不过他没错，是我错了。
前半段实在太过冗长了，以至于煎熬了一半的时间，剧情紧凑起来突然觉得轻快了。
美术果然好的非常陀螺，本来以为是反诈骗片，结果最后变成了戒酒片……ps所以为啥不把画画的技能好好运用下…另外好莱坞女星的抗老医美真的有点过了……
美术、摄影、灯光和服化道都不赖，只是这么一个故事真的需要用两个半小时去讲述吗？尤其第一幕的铺陈有必要如此大费周章吗？要不是结局带来了我始终迷恋的宿命感，观感只会更一般。
失败！！！
wonder how the meek was made?
新版撇开卡司、置景美术，剧本改的太失败了，把原版优秀的地方改的很粗暴，可惜了
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