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".
4.5星 暂时是今年看过最有惊喜和喜欢的一部 男主戏内很charm 特里劳妮教授演技也很棒棒
当然不是因为电影技法而五星。庆幸在这个年纪看能引起极大共鸣的自己。
看完1995年的“Carrington”之后再看这个，Emma Thompson真是太棒了
抛开现实讲，影片里展现出来的真的是高素质、高情商、暖暖的善意和真诚
男主到第三幕开始已经明白要怎么配合雇主了，就是建立亲密关系的某种平等。女主袒露自己，自卑、痛苦的过去，她渴望在男主的身上重建自信。性其实不是最重要的，人格的完满才是重要的，而人类建立平等的某个途径就是知道对方的秘密。男主最终提供了一个有可能是假的私人的故事，获取了女主的信任和兴奋。鱼水之欢在暂时的道德共赢下变得圆满，钱花得很值。但最终高潮是女主自己完成的，事实上也说明了她真正要的不是性而是人格的完整，哪怕是幻觉。这也回答了很多人觉得结局过于完美的问题。那种卡点卡得特别设计的。什么美男子猛回头找手机，含泪诉身世。这种都是非常明显的叙事诡计。如果上当了，说明还是情海不可渡之人。
一边胃疼一边看完了这部期待已久的电影，但是看得入神我都忘记了胃疼，结束之后痛觉仿佛才回到身体里。绝绝绝！果然需要治愈心理疾病才能迎接生命的pleasure。追求什么完美呢，快乐最重要，对吧？
男菩萨渡女苦主到达极乐彼岸的故事。这种唠闲嗑式电影会放大演技的瑕疵，如果表演不到位人物就立不住，故事里的张力和关系也都会不成立。但Emma Thompson 演得太好了！如果不是她，这个角色不会这么令人信服和共情。轻盈有趣，四星推荐。
酸腐→concupiscence
艾玛阿姨的表演大师班，小牛郎也配合默契，真希望那场角色扮演的戏能出个番外，抛开衰老欲望这些话题，安心谈性。
性解放是我认同的，但是是不是应该这么去展示呢？故事没有走出这个房间，如果性别再变换一下是不是又落了俗套呢？
表面上看似乎在讲中老年女性对于爱欲的向往，曾经迎合丈夫的假装，永远无法达到的高潮，对青春期希腊记忆的念念不忘，她将性愿望清单寄托到了拥有年轻肉体还能制造隐秘幻想的性治疗师身上，然而为人师表的一世安分让她产生了罪恶感，她矛盾的渴望着骑马穿越沙漠，又自我囚禁在母亲的身份里，而两人真正从肉体到心灵的交欢后，她终于发现性爱并不可耻，曾经骂那些穿着短裙的学生荡妇也并不是保护，不该用上一代的思想去看这一代的人，这也恰巧是里奥与母亲、她与儿女间所面临的困境，而让生活能够高潮的本质首先要正视自己，哪怕岁月已老，芳华不在
想看莎莉霍金斯也来演演这个角色
都在说男演员但他并不在我的审美点上而且表现过于标准像个工具假人而且直到最后都没能让客户高潮，这片真正重点还是女主角吧，那些关于性的微妙心理以及结尾的豁出去，艾玛汤普森请收下我的膝盖。
对话电影形式，我是比较喜欢的，当然我指的是这种高质量高逼格的对话。
后半段不太行，当然一个这么小切口的片子在故事落点上要寻求一点普世价值讨论也不是不能理解。艾玛汤普森棒。
可真是太好看了，为什么这样的电影直到2022年才出现？打着探索性爱的幌子，其实是四场摆脱禁锢、自我解放、面对自己的身体、接受自己的过去的内心探索之旅。台词和场景都太剧场了，好想看到这个故事在剧场演出。汤婶棒极了！
无需和Leo Grand做爱都能感受到他是calming presence，好在电影没有过分美化这段“雇佣”关系否则仅成了性转版的《风月俏佳人》。在表达“无需为欲望羞耻”和“悦纳自己身体”的诉求上有些流于表面，但Emma的最后一脱着实有力量。
虽然只有两个人的戏，但是人物关系的渐近，和慢慢剖析出的人的性格和背景都非常有戏。感觉是很好的戏。
很棒的小成本制作。结尾也丝毫不落俗套。没有让性升华到爱，也没有让欲望美化到深情。没有给满五星只是因为我觉得台词里一些涉及到的其他社会问题有点刻意，过渡得不够自然，而真正要探讨的性，还是没有更深入展开。第三个角色那个苏珊的女学生出现得有点突兀，虽然她的出现可能可以提供观众一个第三视角的思考角度，但是，我只是在想，导演和编剧有没有能力可以把这种第三视角不通过添加人物角色来演绎出来呢？对，就是可以让这部戏从头到尾都由两个演员演绎出来，是不是更厉害？最后，女性无论如何都要经济独立和思想独立，不要把思想依赖和经济依赖挂在男人身上，你看，当你付钱给男人的时候，他们变得多么可爱和听话，一脸贱样加对你热火的性感，和女性取悦他们时有什么两样？该片应该给世上每个异性恋女孩看看。还有，女性要明白：性和爱是两码事。
从becky开始 我就狂笑 一直到im glad you“came” 最后居然哭了 看着emma Thompson抚摸自己的身体 欣慰的一笑。
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