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".
上升到诗电影显然是高抬了 但确是一部非典型战争片 美院团队用视觉的风格化一定程度上弥补了叙事的孱弱 如果说战争中的小人物视角司空见惯 为大局慷慨牺牲更是既定的主旋律走向 但其中从微观个体出发 对何谓战争何谓信仰何谓忠诚与背叛等宏观概念的粗砺触摸 虽浅尝辄止 但在国产战争片中能看到这份迟疑挣扎已属难得/水下和林中的两处超现实镜头有点意思
跟老师聊：一个给7.4，一个直接认为半成品。 声觉问题真的明显，一些音响的空间感以及配合度都很差（造成这个技术缺陷的理由极其离谱），但德格才让的音效音乐做的很好。 刘智海导演本身的调度没问题。芦苇荡大战一段别出心裁，喜欢；三次幻觉设计也所指清晰，没有硬伤。 主演是朋友，演技精彩，也下了苦功夫，但就是整体亮度太低，损失了大量面部细节，减损了演员的发挥空间（太暗也有一个离谱的理由，不是出于美学需求…）。 整体我个人挺喜欢，全程也没跑神。
2021北影节。有几处情节挺扣人心弦的。处理成黑白色是不是枪林弹雨的场面看着就没有那么血腥吓人了。摄影和美术值得称赞。
摄影和美术很有特点，故事性和人物塑造上欠了，方言也听得我有点懵了，但是，这只是开始！
啥玩意，画面都快看不清了。这方言对话，像湖南，又有点像江浙，快分裂了～
放在国内 算是比较特立独行的战争片 前半段不可避免地想起 伊万的童年 黑白水墨风 运动长镜 固定中远景相结合 再辅以林间和水中战斗 将战争的压抑与晦暗的氛围树立起来 虽能看到人性矛盾的点 但还没有完全抒发 另外 音效虽丰富 但收音和混音做得不够好 这样的电影 剧作当然是让位于形式 但足够独特 值得鼓励7
2021北影节。有几处情节挺扣人心弦的。处理成黑白色是不是枪林弹雨的场面看着就没有那么血腥吓人了。摄影和美术值得称赞。
真实！残酷！如果不是黑白可能都残酷的看不下去。都是自己人打自己人，哎
黑白电影决定着这是一部纯粹的艺术电影，不含一点商业元素。为数不多的有色彩画面是送饭的为数不多的治愈画面。诗性的水墨画风格，画面很美，确有国美风格。
非常风格化的一部战争片。叙事、剪辑、风格、摄影都不主旋律，特别好！
有点致敬老塔的意思，摄影真牛逼。国美永远的神。已二刷，准备三刷。
谁tm说主旋律不能搞艺术/艺术片不讲主旋律？
好久没看电影迟到过了（裂开）......
内容低于形式。通过“口号”就能让人物就团结凝聚，在人物动机和转变描写上就一笔带过。宣教式场景和教化式对白的出现在所谓“诗电影”当中显得不伦不类。
2022..6.23武汉观影体验不错
看这片的时候满脑子想的都是前两天和地方政府谈的那个片子，同样的预算同样的摆，搁这胡求拍呢嘛，视听语言毫无章法，场场戏都在跑，强调任务但任务执行不清晰，在不明觉厉的地方强调，把本该加强的地方漏掉。剪辑总在你完全无法意料的地方跳进跳出。摄影很美，但还是得静帧，个别场景找得很好，但有些场景还可以更好，更完美，但那场日拍夜，实在看得难受，而且居然特么还能跑焦？跑那么久还不止一次？。这些和地方政府合作公费拍片的，总是不够勤快，摄影可以更好、剧本可以更好、试听可以更好、景也可以找得更好，就是不做，就是懒得做，导演在自己哪家电影厂里和老艺术家们高唱艺术颂歌，就是搞不明白怎么拍片子，别拿没钱当借口，这片子还行，至少它还能拍出来，狗日的地方政府休想再坑我一回！
没看到结局之前我是想给三点五的，毕竟摄影画面还是很独特。。然而。。说好听点是生与死的个人选择，直白来讲不就是战场抗命吗？啊？我是看不出哪里有信仰的
在台词、布景、镜头等各方面都走出了国产战争片的固定模式，有一定诗意，值得肯定。但凡事有利有弊，它避开了深层次的探讨，把问题简化成生与死的选择，只是看起来“哲学了”，躲开了实际问题的探讨，有些遗憾，这是目前国产战争电影都没有去解决的。
(ps：刚开始一个人在影院看这个片，冷气配电影贼阴森，后来来了个大哥在前排狂嚼爆米花，有人气多了。
导演不愧是美院出身，视听的诗化、超现实和纪实之间碰撞，调色风格像水墨画卷，又在山水中凝聚血与肉的残忍和天人交战的泥泞——最佳摄影奖实至名归。同时也看到很多前辈导演的影子，老塔、费穆、国师、吴宇森、姜文甚至是万玛才旦（当然他是监制）。导演能把这些元素融合到战争场景当中真的很妙，一开始觉得像1917，后来又发现完全不同。自有其“纯中国化诗电影”的玄机——在我看来就是：人之俗性以及人之神性。最大的短板就是剧本不行，能悟到想表达的，包括一些深层次的东西，但显然编剧笔力尚且不够，没有表现出来。整个剧作就显得形式大于内容，如果不是视听艺术的烘托，就很难体会到个中深意。
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