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".
05/22/2022@Anthology Film Archives
基本事实是清楚的，真正的罗生门是人对自我的认知。最后那场决斗拍的真好。
南特三大洲电影节 非常非常惊喜的观影 少给的一星是话剧形式扣掉的
活色生香，但太过于间离了，难说是my thing。当晚正好没吃晚饭，某些段落看的我感同身受，回家狂炫碳水。
作奸犯科者大多“不缺女人”，罪名为侵犯夫家财产而非人身伤害，大审判荡妇羞辱孤立无援，“孩子需要母亲甚于母亲需要正义”，硬核单挑十八般兵器马蹄敲脑刃穿喉；中世纪#Metoo但Metoo不起来只能靠神权搏杀的女性视觉骑士传奇，写实批判和类型极致两不误，不错
看得出导演的才气，很多场与场情节之间的转换挺有意思，片子氛围营造的很成功，也挺会选角。
需要遗忘对话。迷恋过去的...被迷雾遮盖的背景墙...）当我走进坐席,显得有些无措：侧着耳却什么都听不到、瞪着双眼却一片漆黑。不断变换的舞台与其说是美妙的幻影到处游走的地方,不如说是一个充满生机的场所：在这,真实的或接近真实的男男女女；以及观众,不会迷失于梦里。而是对着收音器发出了自己的声音。
太出乎意料了，原本以为是历史片，而且似乎是男性主题所以本来没有什么兴趣，无意中被剧透了一点点，发现根本是一个借喻现代的寓言。叙事结构算不上多么新颖，但每次叙事中细微的差异化是非常值得玩味的，当闪回的主线已经拼凑起来时，最后四分之一回到即刻，没想到又是多重立场，细究起来太多耐人寻味。切实在描述女性的困境，细腻又贴切，令人绝望而且不寒而栗，可以感受到这种几百年来抗争（反抗和争取）的可贵。而且编剧竟然是大本和达蒙，这俩天才！还有老雷，一直秉承美术上乘的传统，没想到这次血腥场面做得也极其好，第一次看到原来这种决斗并不傻气。整体太沉稳了，前两段都有种节奏奇怪的感觉，看到第三段彻底解惑，原来是故意的。
需要遗忘对话。迷恋过去的...被迷雾遮盖的背景墙...）当我走进坐席,显得有些无措：侧着耳却什么都听不到、瞪着双眼却一片漆黑。不断变换的舞台与其说是美妙的幻影到处游走的地方,不如说是一个充满生机的场所：在这,真实的或接近真实的男男女女；以及观众,不会迷失于梦里。而是对着收音器发出了自己的声音。
只說個人層面的領會，metoo運動之後，世界電影工業對這場運動揣著明面的附議，來到這部片，終於達至讓人心悅誠服的效果。
新戏从来演旧事
肖像式调度和表演
三视角的处理真的太绝了，男性视角的自我美化和自我投射，实在是真实，真实到，即便不看女性视角，也可以很明显看出哪里不自然，Jacques视角把逃脱挣扎看成欲拒还迎当然是再明显不过，Jean视角听到妻子控诉犯人表现出的冷静和支持简直太假。任性、虚荣、嫉妒这些强加在女性身上的刻板印象，在这两个男人身上显露无疑，而女性自古以来，控诉性暴力却一直在滚钉板、受火刑，末了还被来一句“诬告零成本”。决斗之后的回程，对Jean来说，是胜利的荣光，对Marguerite来说，却是游街示众，她的苦难远远没有结束……几百年后的文明人，审视受到性暴力的女性的样子，和黑暗残忍的中世纪又有多大的区别？好在故事最后，好斗的丈夫战死沙场，谁不叹一句苍天有眼，离开男人才是女人幸福生活的开始
时光轮转 智慧修复，如普通的力感如体验……
记录：anthropology archive. 举重若轻，人如鸿毛在时代的洪流中。太喜欢了，两年内看过的最佳。
不愧是雷德利斯科特，把历史吃女人的本质诠释入木三分。不过罗生门似乎没必要，丈夫-妻子的二元叙事就可以了。三个人中至少有一个人需要虚化，德赖弗不必有POV。最后的决斗太喜欢了，看得心惊肉跳。
渐入佳境，重拳出击。没有前两段的对比，就没有最后的重击。自始至终，男人的眼里只有美化的自己。女人，再有才华和抱负，都只是可笑的财产和工具，哪怕是一场付之生命的声讨，也只是男人的手段，别人眼里的一出好戏。从头到尾，只有羞辱，没有正义。看到结尾的那几行字，心里不禁大呼：爽！
重温
1.最大败笔在于第三章玛格丽特的叙述直接冠以“truth”之名，这该交由观众自行辨别。我对那是最接近真相的版本没有丝毫怀疑，但粗体横线式的强调会消解前两段叙述全部的可信度，丈夫和强奸犯因此彻底沦为夸饰男性可鄙的荣誉感与征服欲的符号，削弱了人性和文本本身的复杂性。甚至观众会质疑：那我们看前两段叙述的意义何在？2.但本片依然值得赞美。尤其是高潮的决斗，女主生存与否系于两个男性决斗的结果，但即使丈夫获胜，她也没有真正被拯救。这是对战争史诗片中女性总是被保护被拯救对象的有力嘲讽。3.贞德以外有一部英法百年战争背景的影片多难得，就冲时代复现这一点，也是值得一看的佳作。4.片末玛格丽特的表情变化，和斯宾塞结尾的戴妃，多相似。世殊时异却两相叠印，细思恐极。
从来没想到雷德利·斯科特居然能拍出如此干巴巴而食之无味的片，更加没想到居然在半个多世纪后还能拍出这样一部对《罗生门》拙劣的效法。拿历史故事硬蹭#metoo也不是不行，但是又要一本正经板着脸，又找一帮完全错位的波士顿土包子来演，it just doesn’t work
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