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".
剧作出彩，整体完成度极高的处女作，闪回呈现甚至比幻化的“现实”当下更为细腻。
看了超高糊版，有点懵，四星是因为我太爱这部片子的音乐了
可能因为不在那个context下所以很难被打动，少年无脑冲动或许才是应然，出身中产反而习惯算计
元素很多，主题很集中，但感觉组织得有点混乱。或许只能在这样重重包裹的表达方式下，那些可能第一印象并不容易受到欢迎的观点才能得以表达。
各种意义上的现实为客而自恃为主，秩序的扰乱者正是秩序的制定者。救助行动看似为了疗愈，实则是有心无聊的玩笑与挑战。是一种勇敢的不完美的女性主体的书写，对女性的身体性被母职与年龄所束缚的焦虑与反抗，对男性年轻肉体的殷羡与求而不得的嫉恨，对自我情欲的主导和把控，至于是否有“我不是一个好母亲”的愧疚与羞耻，应该说当成年女儿的形象全片缺失时，和结尾的回归，这已然表明是一种常态的妥协。一场旅途并非为了母女关系的试图修复且再次被刺伤，而是“懒惰又自私”的自我锚定。削出的果皮，和洋娃娃嘴里的秽物是无法切割的衔尾蛇。丨女人一眼就能分辨出亲疏，而那种谨慎的观察并非内疚，而是不解。丨金棕榈最佳剧本。
对母职的探讨浅尝辄止，Olivia和Jessie的表演撑起了整部电影。
4K修复电影：2022.7.30 板桥威秀影城
反刍会觉得更好的片子。真生娃劝退片。悬念设置不错。成为一个母亲，就不再是自由的自己，其间的甘苦只能自己品味。在这个承担母职的幸福铺天盖地，承担母职的痛苦点到即止的世界里，总要有人道出真相。费兰特对于丢失的娃娃和女儿一定有着什么情结。承担母职是苦，逃脱的负罪感又何尝饶过自己，而这都是父亲所不需承担的。
没有责任感的父母总是有诸多借口，电影里的至少还懂得反思，而评论里的却各种振振有词。
剧本当然OK，但落点不对，没能给科尔曼的角色足够的赋能，拍那么多达妹简直是在胡闹，主要她演得也太尬了。至于科尔曼演得好不好？当然好，但她和其他人长期不在一个频道上，同时，她这种跳脱的表演，时间一长真的很容易让人审美疲劳呐。
白色的少年，像白色的鸟，无枝可依。少年的骨头是不需要拾起的，本是散落在地的星星，毋需回望，毋需拯救。
现在台湾已经没有这么江湖和生猛的片子了。当然，可能跟现实社会的转变也有关系吧，治安整体变好了，没有那些兄弟情，更多的是关注现代生活中的困境。但那时候的江湖往事就是这种年轻荷尔蒙的爆发，不管不顾，没有将来，这也是侯导口中家常的故事吧。小的时候特别讨厌闽南语歌曲，现在感觉特别亲切，就喜欢这种讲着闽南语，听着闽南语歌的年轻，虽然我也不是混混，但身边也有这样的朋友（当然没有那样的枪支混乱），太接地气了，也是一个时代的特别的青春片吧。
雨一直下，像我的悲哀。
摘：“想要假装坚强因此拒绝别人的善意、想要放手一搏却始终无法放下自己的矜持”
where soundlessness is~ 风尘塑像～
客观地来说一些bug还是存在，但是我还蛮喜欢的。
为闽南语卡拉OK打五星！我的ktv闽南歌单，看完脑袋飘到了童年小区的那卡西歌厅，5555
画质感人啊 没妈老汉管的孩子就是容易玩火 侯孝贤味儿浓烈
明明早已標過，為什麼沒了？記得當時很震驚，沒想到安是安非他命。比起艋舺之流，這才是真正的壞胚子電影。片子拍完沒多久阿兜仔譚志剛就車禍去世，阿國毒品槍炮竊盜各種前科，最後因綁架罪入獄11年，兩個無知少年的現實人生竟也走上不歸路。少年們，何時才能安。
这个比开我车好，尤其是剧本也是Maggie自己写的，简洁得恰到好处。缺点是依然落入了某种疗伤电影的俗套，以及剧中角色、环境的神秘感都不太够。日常被拍得太平常。选角我持个保留意见，虽然大家都演得不错（包括Dakota这种本来不怎么好的女演员），但气质仿佛没有一个人是对的。Vulnerable但优雅的Jessie Buckley如何完全变成一个英国菜场大妈（no offence to Olivia, 她演菜场大妈是绝活）？我不太相信。虽然这个角色的确变了很多，但她基本的一些气质和manner还应该是持续一致的。现在两个演员扮演的两个阶段太分裂以至于我已经不相信是同一个人了。Paul Mescal也是，看似好像很符合这个角色，但实际上他没有那种seductive的气场，他还是演自己的乖乖男，那就不太对了。
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