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".
来一个同题作文，03年的梁妈妈没有患癌，大女儿也不用提前回来生活，在美帝学业马术两手抓，暑假回国补习中文，08年北京奥运会前紧急入籍，勇夺首枚马术奥运🥇，赞助代言纷至沓来……吼不吼啊……
成功纳入了「恐婚恐育」电影图谱，同时本身也是蛮好的剧情片，很扎实、很细腻，如今还在认认真真雕琢着电影、能拍出普通华人生活状态影像的，基本就只剩下台湾影人了吧（这是可以说的吗？）。其实也并不只是贫贱夫妻百事哀，贫贱其次，生儿育女难度最大的是，要提供给孩子长达十余年、十分稳定的生活环境。不能轻易地改变现状，殊不知维持现状才最难。家庭冲突的部分非常揪心，没有听到美国女孩的演讲，有种无疾而终的遗憾。
若不是略显仓促的结尾，值得四星。小演员仿佛是牯岭街里的小明，浑然天成。
American Girl讲，有时候恨跟爱是一体两面；“但这如果已经是她的最好了呢？”
从拒之门外到主动迎接，也许失去过的爱才会明白去珍惜。疫情大背景下中美文化差异被刻意的夸大了很多，但是最普世的情感还是想通的，没有宣传下的催人泪下，都是最简单的真情流露，林嘉欣和方郁婷的表演都值得点赞！
三星半
很期待女儿演讲比赛写的信，到结屋也没有读出来。家庭冲突之后去看了喜欢的马儿，想给马套上「缰绳」出去走走，马儿也排斥「束缚」，那一刻的芳仪顿悟了爱的一体两面，选择和爸妈和解，和处于叛逆期的孩子一起看了这部电影，希望他能有自己的思考与判断。
片名“美国女孩”，但其实讲的是两种不同文化相互碰撞的家庭故事。很喜欢影片前半呈现出来的生活质感，偶尔的小温情能让人心里暖暖的。影片后半借用当年SARS来套用当下，想要的东西太多，叙事太赶影响了节奏。最后一场家庭大矛盾就草草和解收场，有一种到点打卡下班的感觉。其实还可以表达更多东西，烂尾可惜了。
主题很小但拍的不错，林嘉欣是港台鼎盛时代末期的明星了，印象最深的就是她和学友的男人四十，这部电影里的表演恰到好处
有佳句無佳章~佳句也是來自林嘉欣的幾段表演~~不是說影片裏的這個生活的苦難就不是苦難~~~只是……只是……現實比這些嚴重多的多的~還並沒有被看到……
林嘉欣好美。故事里的每个人都有自己的困境，不能单纯批评芳怡自私不理解父母，她的世界被颠覆学校里的一切不如意正好碰上了这尴尬的自我年纪。但我真的有点讨厌家里女儿和爸爸合谋讨厌妈妈的情节。妈妈一个人面对生死，就像思婷说的那样如果现在已经是她能做到的最好了呢？每个人都在希望她回复平静承诺不会早死，有没有问过她想要就这样死去吗？好在爸爸虽然爱抱怨却始终尝试理解妻子，小女儿肺炎隔离时也放弃出差留在家里。其实作为家中唯一一个赚钱养家的人，爸爸的压力也可想而知的大。芳安看起来真的懂事很多，难以想象在这样年幼的时段她竟然一直在试图弥合妈妈和姐姐之间的间隔。她竟然知道跟姐姐说，你真的知道妈妈是爱你的吧？学校的语文老师第一次训话看上去凶凶的，没想到却是她在发现芳怡说恨妈妈的blog时反而给了她演讲说真话的机会。
2.5/瑣碎的家庭生活呈現已經讓我感到肉疼，但正因為劇目將舞台局限於家庭本身，關於疫病/東亞式教育/cultural shock/生死等問题才無法被真誠且有效的回應(/解答)。
感情表达很细腻，也有跟着落泪。不过好像只是在表达，意义并不深刻。结尾也有点突然结束，人物形象立的不是很饱满。（然后想想没有孩子应该不会这么愁吧，林嘉欣还是好美好美）
年纪大了真是看不得这种片子 因为知道短暂的温情前后全是无尽的琐碎与折磨 sigh
自然主义表演和摄影的范本。
一个分崩离析的家庭，在笼罩着恐惧的瘟疫背景下，如何拨开云雾找回阳光？
跟瀑布一样都聚焦于疫情下的母女关系，演员很细腻真实，整体算是流畅好看，但是结尾有些仓促粗糙，包括铺陈多时的演讲与跨文化议题嘎然而止，情绪得不到像瀑布的蓝色幕布拉掉一样的释放。
前期把所有问题都暴露在观众面前 自私控制欲贫穷身份认同 最后仅用亲情化解所有有点偷懒 二女儿更讨喜
选的话题很犀利，但却都没挖进去
5.0/10.0。浅尝辄止，我觉得这部电影是拍给青春期少年看的。
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