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".
作为配角的母亲是本片的戏眼，几乎所有亮点、甚至可以说是能让人看得下去的戏都在母亲这一角色的身上。如此一来，主角的戏份则过于鸡肋。应当调整叙事视角与结构，让母亲成为第一主角，从她的角度去迎接儿子带给她的挑战、抵抗与接纳，这样一来故事反而能好看起来。作为一名年轻导演，在影片中融入了不少年轻元素，但是有些剪辑稍显突兀，大部分笑点十分刻意，还是太过于稚嫩。
先码后评。有种央视6高清电影的质感，但潮汕的人情味拍得很出彩。
单看剧情很好看，整体来说顺畅舒坦，烟火气十足，就是结尾突然来了大团圆，猝不及防，没有给转折，减一星，没看够
单看剧情很好看，整体来说顺畅舒坦，烟火气十足，就是结尾突然来了大团圆，猝不及防，没有给转折，减一星，没看够
如果结局停留在去机场前，值八分。可惜最后还是落了俗套。没必要强行大团圆，生活里能有这种转折的少之又少。
#202224#
好棒的电影哦，感觉挺有生活气息的，我喜欢他们家潮汕的那种房子，自带庭院干干净净的样子
我现在特喜欢这种讲方言的电影，通过语言能直接传达从那片土地蒸腾而起的文化氛围。
只要拍电影用心，何愁观众不走心呢？女主的脸让我出戏，扣一星。
7.5分。很久没看到这么认真探讨代际问题的院线电影了。“妈妈”的表演撑起全片。结尾那句“妈妈是不是很没用啊”，一下子把整部片的意蕴提上去了。
几个配角里爸爸挺有意思的，一开始会觉得和妈妈感情一般，但是从两次妈妈出门时候的态度看还是挺可爱的。
素人演员碰撞出不一样的火花，融入潮汕本地的风俗和文化，让本来简单的故事更添人情味。
#202224#
看到片中间的时候，就在想千万不要是俗套的烂结局，一点也不现实。不过，也真有点害怕这片子有过于现实，还是会期待一个圆满的结局。
我还看到了熟悉的深圳
剧本有待打磨，演员都是素人吧有些不太行，女主的网红脸太出戏
很有感觉，虽然并不是潮汕人，但着实喜欢这种土里土气的风格，就跟看《雄狮少年》喜欢那些滲透着地方杂味的配乐一样，是嘹亮的嗓子冲散污浊的世间的一刻，因为没有流于通俗，而保留着其小众的美…
也不知这算不算网大，概念不重要，重要的是我看到了一部真诚的作品，导演简介里也多次提到了“人戏合一”这个形容，真是这样，尤其对我们这种去过潮汕逛吃、但没有深入了解潮汕风土人情的“外省客”，感动之余也更有跟着影片去旅行的另一层收获。再有个收获就是潮汕方言的乐队《玩具船长》，虽然听不懂词，但和台湾的生祥、交工乐队那帮人一样类似的寻根民乐风格也是深得我心。是我愿意给5星的小成本影片。
在电影院听到自己的家乡话，这种感觉太奇妙了，我全程都笑到不行。电影很真实的呈现了潮汕地区的方方面面，家庭成员关系，邻里关系，拜神风俗等等，非常非常真实。所以我很想知道外地人看完这部电影的感受（当然可能外地人根本对这部电影也没有兴趣吧）。对于男主因为母亲反对就也没有挣扎一下的就分手了，我看的时候很错愕，这是正常影视该有的思维吗，不过后面想想，这简直不要太真实了，实际情况往往就是这样的，而不是像影视里面呈现的多多轰轰烈烈撕心裂肺。反正我这个潮汕人对这部电影的滤镜太重了，好玩好笑，剧情还说的过去，那就是非常好哈哈哈哈见
小众电影，却是那段时间让我比较满意的一部——本土化，方言化，家长里短却不稀碎，演员表演自然到位，整体完成度也很不错。如果是潮汕人，代入感应该会更高，即便我不是，看完也能感受到浓郁地当地人文气息。
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