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".
好惨。没一个人好过的。其实特意回去再看了一下女孩没有偷东西啊？会不会是惯偷被剑心制止了呢？但为啥拉进房里又突然跑出来啊？不过应该都是想太多了，其实就是惯犯被拉进房里责备然后害怕逃跑。剑心后面的表现其实就是个老好人。阿姨都喜欢的老好人。
讽刺力MAX，所谓获奖，所谓艺术，大多是自High。
预算高了，形式好了，但是结束方式喜欢不起来
虽然本身进行了一系列结构解构，完全称不上是现实的，但是乍眼一看，只觉国外电影工作者之幸福，与自身所处土地之窘迫了。
最近看过的最好的一部喜剧。在角色设定上，强势疯狂的女导演与两个世界级男演员的特定组合已经形成对男子气概某种反讽（考虑到在电影界中普遍存在的男导演-女缪斯组合）。
真的好笑，也嘲讽了一波，很特别的片子，不过看的累，演技痕迹很重。
表现手法很当代艺术，讽刺是刺到了，但又还是比较肤浅。刺不穿这么厚的脸皮的辣种肤浅。佩内洛普是挺牛的，美，还是美。还是做的很好的是，全方位的连带观众一起讽刺了：本我，朝我，虚无，爹，的揭露讽刺。
该怎么和解呢？最难的是与自己和解，而后才能融化嫉妒和仇恨。片冈戏份不多却很动人，父亲低头给ex道歉时开始泪目。结尾很好。现实很残酷，还好，我们没放弃心里深处那一丝温柔。
戏写得太平均太满了，虽然理解导演想由事故这一个点出发扩散成网状叙事，但种种社会议题码得整整齐齐还是不太自然，又是窒息父权，又是道歉文化，还得上演释怀老路，全程看得人胸闷，最后就像绷紧的线断了一样，也只能如此收尾了。
因为这两周刚好在学script analysis 好神奇的观影体验 很灵动！
这剧本往反转的路子延伸，光父亲这条线是不够的，对应的男主一路下滑陷溺，演变到最后变成外界的环境激发了父亲的转变，失之肤浅，强行的温情结局抹去了黑暗。如果交北野武手里，定会有不同质地的生之感悟。
#金鸡 父亲粗暴偏执的恨需要这么多这么厚的爱意才可以被逐渐的融化。但是自杀的女司机和被迫放弃父亲留下的社区店的店主他们的人生呢？演技真的好，也是真的压抑。好久没看这样不用配乐推进的情绪堆叠了。
大晚上看这个真的太气了 这老爸脾性差还充满戾气 我不懂为什么他讨人厌了一整场却因为最后小小的柔软而得到大家的谅解。我不是说花音该死 说我黑心也罢 我认为这样的老爸就应该让他承受点人生的痛苦！凭什么还能趾高气扬地地追问人家要自己想要的被扭曲的真相？反倒是店长 战战兢兢地工作 如履薄冰地看着世人的眼光 别人只对他说句“谢谢”就让他流泪 这样的人为什么活得那么痛苦？还有第一个撞到花音的小姐姐 被良心和舆论打倒了 为什么到死了都没活得一句原谅？这样固执已见的老爸 到女儿死了才去试着理解她的老爸 凭什么带给人家那么多痛苦？真想他手在船上被割伤然后破伤风死掉！媒体也该死 社会需要公义 还有需要保护维持公义的方式！【我恨得咬牙切齿 皆因老爸这个演员演得真好】
笑死我了，这电影里面的两个男演员一个油腻自负一个装逼虚伪，一个比一个幼稚一个比一个sb，还有一个调教他们演戏还调教得挺好的神经质女导演，三个奇葩一台戏。结局挺有意思的。
2.5，讽刺的内容完全可以讽刺这部片子的制作。
3.5星 挺有趣的 幽默和讽刺的形式都挺有想法的 相比之下这个剧本就没那么多惊喜了
还行吧，拍摄手法和叙事方式都挺特别的。印象最深时女导演和投资人女儿直接吻到在地上翻滚并如此成为情侣。Humberto Suárez大楼外面那片缺少水分的旷野让我很怀念西班牙
#2021威尼斯主竞赛# 班德拉斯的表演空间太大了。
安静 沉默 剧情推进巧妙 发人深思 每个人物出现都没白白浪费 饱满鲜活
但无论结局超市关门大吉，老板去从事苦力，依然改变不了发生的惨剧……
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