A different way of telling a story

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Eric Deighton's review of "Martin"*spoilers alert*"There isn't any magic. It's just sickness." says Martin (John Amplas) in response to Cuda (Lincoln Maazel), his old-country Catholic uncle. George Romero delivered a movie that strips away all magic from the vampire mythos and replaces it with the gritty realism of sickness...so of course it was filmed on location in Pittsburgh in the Braddock neighborhood. The extras were local residents from the Braddock neighborhood of Pittsburgh and this movie really reminded me of the year I spent in school in Pittsburgh. George Romero cast his own wife, Christine Forrest, as the female lead "Christina". She has a very pretty but vaguely Eastern-European look as does Lincoln Maazel who plays Uncle Cuda. For some reason these characters seemed very familiar to me and oddly comforting. Many of the extras and actors and actresses looked like other people I had encountered during my own time in Pittsburgh, twenty years after this film was made. The music in this movie is a haunting religious sounding score. The shots of daily life in 1977 Pittsburgh were useful in grounding this vampire movie and presenting vampirism as just another shitty disease. Rather than exhibit mystic powers to lure and attack his victims, Martin is an awkward young man who stalks very average non-glamorous women and injects them with drugs and even then only barely beats these women in battle. Then Martin sucks the blood from their unconscious bodies after slicing them open with a razor blade. Martin then hides his crime by making the woman's death by making it look like a suicide. Braddock is one of the most run-down sections of Pittsburgh — the decay evident in the movie contrasts nicely with Martin's fantasies, shot in black and white like a romantic vampire movie, where women willingly give up their throats to him. Pittsburgh (similiar to Cleveland) has always been a talk radio town so the scenes involving Martin calling into a local DJ ring true. Martin becomes a regular caller known as "The Count" on a late night radio show. I enjoyed the movie and will probably check out other Romero movies.

"Martin" follows the titular character, an awkward young man who has delusional fantasies about being a vampire. After relocating from Indiana to a small Pennsylvania town, he moves in with his cousin and aged grand uncle, where his vampiric tendencies begin to spiral out of control.One of George Romero's more understated offerings (I'd liken it in tone to his offbeat 1973 effort, "Season of the Witch"), "Martin" is as much a psychological character study as it is a horror film; in fact, it's something of a collision of the two. The film begins with a disturbing date rape scene-turned-bloodletting that is discomforting to say the least. This sets the tone for the remainder of the film, which is downbeat and atmospherically dreary, largely evoked through the idyllic small-town sets and emotive camera-work. Black-and-white photography is utilized to full effect for the vampiric fantasies, which are surreal and eerie.The success of the film largely depends on John Amplas's performance as the title character, and he does the character justice. Martin is both sympathetic and abhorrent, disturbed and misunderstood—the balance struck between both extremes is nuanced, and the tension within the character's identity is where the majority of the film's power lies. The conclusion of the film is in line with its downbeat tone, and renders the film something of an unexpected modern horror tragedy.Romero has said that "Martin" is his favorite of all his films, and it's understandable why. It feels like one of his most personal works (perhaps his most personal), and Martin as a character is able to evoke a multitude of feelings from the audience. The film is both disturbing and amusing, horrific and depressing—it also maintains a high-brow aesthetic throughout in spite of its budgetary limitations. An understated, atmospheric, and compelling character study that functions just as well as a horror film. 9/10.

George A. Romero changed modern horror with his debut feature, Night of the Living Dead. He has now become synonymous with the zombie sub-genre but he also directed other very interesting films of different types. Perhaps his best of these is Martin, shot on grainy 16mm, its very low budget and low-key yet very intense in places. Like David Cronenberg's later film Rabid (1977) it takes the vampire film and revises it, albeit in a very different way. A shy teenager called Martin moves to a dilapidated Pittsburgh suburb to stay with his uncle Cuda who is convinced he is a vampire, tracing his curse back to their Eastern European descent. Martin also believes himself to be a vampire but not of the traditional supernatural type. He habitually attacks and drugs young women only to then slash them and drink their blood.Like other Romero films, this is another horror film which is far better written and acted as is usual for such low budget fare. It works on a few different levels and combines the psychological drama with vampire film and serial killer flick. The result is impressively original. The characters are far from one dimensional. Martin is played very sympathetically by John Amplas, yet we know he murders young women; Cuda is overbearing and bullish, at the same time his harsh attitude towards Martin is hardly entirely wrong. So right away, we in the audience are not given the usual clear cut characters to root for or dislike. Amplas is really very good and on the strength of this he should have had a great acting career, while Lincoln Maazel is also very strong as Cuda. The remainder of the cast are also impressive and put in naturalistic performances, including Romero himself as a priest.Whether or not Martin is really a vampire remains essentially ambiguous and it is left to the viewer to decide. The black and white sequences could be fantasy or they could be a distant moment from the vampire Martin's past. My guess is the former but it can be read in different ways. What is for sure though is that the iconography of the vampire film is modernised considerably. Rather than fangs and cloaks its razor blades and hypodermic needles. Not only this but Martin's vampiric urges seem to stem from a dysfunctional sexuality, unlike the libidinous actions of Dracula. He becomes an anonymous local celebrity when he becomes a regular caller on a night-time radio talk show, even here he is not taken seriously but it proves to be the only place where he can express his inner thoughts. Martin's attacks are almost a substitute for his impotency. The confrontational and disturbing opening sequence on a train illustrates the films decidedly modernist approach to this material. A second extended house invasion scene is even more unusual in its dynamics. The film ultimately ends with a final moment of visceral horror which is sudden, shocking and darkly ironic. Martin is a real triumph from Romero and one of the smarter horror films out there.

I saw this film a few years ago, so my memory isn't great... Martin is a film I first saw as a matinée for 50p, and I wish I could get that back. First of all, the picture is HORRIBLE. It all seems just... sh*t. I know it was the 70s but they should have had some production values. It might symbolise something, but I don't get it at all. Secondly, the ending seems rushed. I mean really, really rushed. All I remember was "NOSFERATU!" *stab* Finally, I was shocked that it was George A. Romero who made this. I can't say it's all bad, It is possible to look at it as a vampire satire. (Although, again,if it was I definitely missed that), plus it isn't as bad as the vampire abomination that is Twilight.