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".
听了映后交流会，感觉整片拍摄过程就和电影的故事一样，被下达了一个不可逆的指令，最终的结局也必定是悲剧的。
去年北影节，看了两部主竞赛，一共打了三颗星。相比那两部主竞赛，这部bp可能是代表了北影节主竞赛的最高水准了，但要说是自嗨的话，我感觉也没什么毛病。能看出来导演在画风上有在像塔可夫斯基伊万的童年靠拢，甚至安排了儿童角色，但呈现出来的效果并不尽如人意。虽然在主旋律题材上选择了弱化情节用以与长津湖等主流影片相区分，可看成是一次不一样的尝试，但影片的反思程度较苏联时期的战争电影则有着云泥之别，内核只剩下了接到命令去执行任务来获取胜利，跟八佰比起来都单薄了许多。结尾的血雨倒是蛮有想法的，是唯一的颜色，也是为数不多的亮点。
烂片当道，看得多了人都变得宽容，对好片的标准也变得模糊。但真正的好片，大多是润物细无声的，无需大肆张扬，自能触动人心，《爱情神话》《雄狮少年》如此，本作也如此。
大放异彩的点很多，技法渲出来的氛围极佳，深层的恐惧和动摇的信念用潮湿与窒息的调调透过荧幕传给观众再移情回人物。好几场的意识流拍法/剪法是名副其实的华彩［真的很难相信国内战争片能做到这样］，水下几场/几个手部特写/最后的那场血雨属实赚足好感。关于“敌人”的塑造也能看出主创抛弃传统叙事的想法，他们可以不是人，他们是阴影，是昭示死亡和仇恨的东西。这显然不是聊个人英雄咋咋咋，而是战争对于人本身心智的摧残
这么多好评？抱歉，真的欣赏不来。整部片子色调都是很灰暗，灰暗的连人脸都看不清，所以出现的一些角色根本就分辨不清楚，看完了之后也就是最后一个镜头有记忆点，其余部分讲的断断续续，非常潦草，枪战动作戏也跟过家家似的，没有任何看点，反而看的昏昏欲睡，就这还能得天坛奖？！在我眼里也就值个两星！
怎么说的，诶……剧情实在是，不太看得下去呀
映后导演连线，一个月做出来的电影，实也可贵，有万玛才旦导演一起合作，风格化明显，此类战争片少见，在尝试一些不同的东西。有几场戏的摄影调度还是很棒，但影片范围感很强以至于有点像舞台剧。三星半
完全不懂想说什么啊……好多场戏真的无头无尾，人物基本不认得，基本无共情可能。有几个画面蛮好看，但是摄影机一动起来，就晃得很不舒服，不是呼吸感而是步伐感。
印象里有几个天马行空的设计，但看到最后也没琢磨明白。
当然不够好，但不可否认的是主旋律电影在艺术上更进了一部。至少对标的不在是《独臂刀王》这种，而是《风吹麦浪》与《1917》了。
典型的形式大于内容。故事苍白且单薄，方言和调色对于战争的呈现效果也有待商榷，唯一优点可能是给主旋律的表现形式上提供了一种新的思路。
开场拍的像雕塑，接着的丛林追逐戏也不错，到对手戏以及群戏就散架了。这种电影还是《1917》人物少一点，危机埋藏着才精彩啊。
虽然知道应该不会有，但是担心担心担心
3.0，（鼓励分）美院的战争片运用了不少遮瑕技巧，比如方言、色调、无核心人物、时间线短等，拍出了学院派的风格，摄影方面远景比近景好，可惜没有绝对的故事核心导致看完以后印象不深，只是意识流方面的残余观感留在脑海中。总之，还是希望华语片能做些不同风格的持续尝试，并且多在剧作本身和创作深度上下功夫，差国际水准太多了。
虽然有很多问题，比如设计性并没有想象中那么强，有一种浓浓的“滤镜”感；全片的影像基调并没有很好统一，段落之间存在一定割裂；人物、故事太简单，空有符号没有内在联系，想往诗意那个方向做又欠火候，主题模糊表述不清；以及画面亮度过分的暗，让人看的真的很累等等。但是，在这样的大环境下做出这种主旋律+风格化美学的尝试无疑是值得鼓励的；或者也没有那么多预设，不过是一次误打误撞罢了……
这是一部足以打破人们对主旋律电影固化思维的好片子，没有夸大英雄，用真实的小故事还原历史，深入人心感动观众。
几位主创都是朋友，确实也没有失望，没有强调战争中的对立，而是放在了“人本身”，看到了人道立场。
要上映了打个卡～个人挺喜欢，前半段以为是水墨版《1917》，那种无形之处的恐慌感，像雾气一般的危机四伏。后半段幻觉与现实反复堆叠和最后的血雨印象太深刻了，不过剧情还是有拖沓瑕疵的地方，多一星奖励他没有胳膊腿乱飞炮火连天。
场面明显看出是有设计在里面的，小分队夹在沈队和洪队之间，从决定求生走到执行命令，经过的是一个个活生生的人。血和肉抛洒在大地上，革命的残酷就在于无法在这一刻决定牺牲是否有用。 探讨人性的层面太过浅显，在是否执行命令上少了探索，但电影却将这个命题贯穿始终。好的一点是战斗场面贴近了现实，可以将动作戏全程看做人物的挣扎。 另外，感叹一句内地电影市场不是不可以将这样的电影树立成业界标杆，而且在这部电影获奖的背后，多少觉得有些苦涩……
这个苏联式诗意战争片的尝试再一次印证了“视觉不是美术”——极精致的摄影和极粗糙的故事、对白、剪辑和调度并存，努力实现的气韵也显得虚无。
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