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".
作为寓言故事，柯南伯格或许是想借助身体器官的噩梦演变，表达对未来生存环境的悲观思考；或许是想借助失去痛觉、以手术与切割代替的性爱，表达当代人爱欲在未来走向枯竭；或许是想借助蕾雅赛杜结尾含泪的控诉，表达政治观点。又或许，这也不是寓言，剥开身体的表象，一个个人物代表的是未来社会人的情感状态，一切文本层面的花样，再怎么解读也只是纹饰而已。视听不够极致、人物对白占比过大、意象编织过于晦涩难懂，都是老毛病了。但这次远比上次的《星图》有魅力多了，所以我选择原谅了柯南伯格。
非常非常喜欢前半部分，完全多于后半部分，前半部分被带入一个新奇的世界，像生物一样的床，椅子和尸检操作台用以切割肌肤和器官成为新的性爱愉悦，想象奇绝，但后面就进化成了吃塑料。。。（？）当局掩盖吃塑料的人的进化，最后男主吃塑料感受到了新的进化。。。（？）
柯南伯格又打开了一种迷人的高概念世界，而Saul Tenser最后的变异，让这个概念向前跨出重要一步的同时也升华了整部电影。在细微入里的快感体验中，人们的精神开始扭曲，开始走向悲剧，吃下塑料的Saul，果真是五味杂陈地坦然面对。小K的表演看得我有点懵，我只能强行解释成柯南伯格让她这样演，但还是觉得别扭。
身体本就被塞满了隐喻 而高概念的设定将这种隐喻的作用无限放大 进化出的无用器官是疾病的延伸 人类与疾病（自然规律）的抗争行为被赋予政治 艺术 哲学的意义 肉身的痛苦缩小数倍直至可被忽略 但来自虚空意义的痛苦时刻放置在影像的正中 柯南伯格专门塑造出一个世界来讲述概念 讲述的力度再小一点还会更好
visually irresistible 关于艺术家创作的思考很好，关于技术主义的探讨仅是蜻蜓点水
除了反反复复的身体恐怖之外，只剩下故弄玄虚的卖弄和敷衍，不说柯南伯格自己巅峰时期的作品，就是对比去年的金棕榈《钛》，也远谈不上碾压，甚至在创新程度上更有不如。
本片不但炫技，还秀思想。厉害
我本来还看出了点对当代艺术的讽刺，尤其是黑哥问自己腹上长包算不算艺术差点没给我笑喷，结果看影评大家又非常严肃地在解构电影，给我整不会了。btw我属实不理解为什么当众割肉当xp的人要鄙视吃塑料的人，这个鄙视链我整不明白
delicate，complex，meaningful
看到三分之二，忽然理解到一条暗线，片子里很多人说话说不自然不清楚（或者干脆喉咙有问题），是在暗指传统交流不畅。性除了政治，还是一种交流方式，当传统性爱不再奏效，喷别人一脸术语可能也是一种文爱——甚至文爱了半天，才想起来是可以接吻的。说来说去还是马克思所强调的恢复身体的感觉（为什么不让身体引导你呢？）
穿插着的都是器官，手术和刀割，但我却看到了beauty。
纯属来恶心我…我认了
2020年之后终于有一部电影让我瞳孔地震又refresh，就是那种，不舒服但很喜欢的感觉
酷儿解读：进步者/塑料工人和他的孩子就是拥有与传统不停的身体和欲望的人（可以认为是酷儿），而保守派就是现今意义上的保守派，资本欺骗新人类它们仍然需要旧人类的东西，不遵守就会被制裁；保守的人类因为害怕新人类的出现手刃自己的小孩，而男主一语道出：我觉得他们对那具身体反而是很着迷的。这就是未来的罪行。就是不知道为什么要让斯图尔特演这么一个stereotype的角色…..（本片最讨厌的部分）反倒是男主说“I am not very good at the old sex” 不觉得讽刺吗讲着属于未来的故事却仍然用着老套的欧洲式的image
？？？等级不够，看得我好难受，并且很排斥…
大都会！！大都会的续集！！！看上去像是欲望号快车的延续，但内里感觉还是大都会一样的梦呓续作。身体改造和自然进化放在现代语境对应着的现代的焦虑和麻木、错乱，快感与疼痛的对应，激进和保守的对立，到最后那滴泪水和微笑，真的很好。
很想知道贺建奎的基因剪辑宝宝们现如今到底怎么样了！？片子让我很困扰的一点是，维果，一个在木兰花“催产床“控制下时不时长出奇怪器官的人，怎么能声称Lang（一具被改造过的躯体）“发明”了一个拥有自然生成的塑料消化系统的孩童是一个疯狂的想法？？？casting太不可🈲，本来就很干很单薄的幽默全被这些so called star拖累
演员的演技倒是不差，但是这个剧本这个摄制这些个道具，及其呈现出来的恶心的东西，我认为只有恶趣味才能喜欢
太未来了
3.5，肉欲的，感官的，跳跃的，沉闷的。对进化着迷，对进化恐惧，倒是让我想起暴力史那份人在两个极端上的矛盾。
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