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Fantastic!

best movie i've ever seen.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Some of George Romero's movies, beyond being gorefests, have political themes. "Martin" is an example. The main character is a young man (John Amplas) who may or may not be a vampire. His uncle (Lincoln Maazel) is convinced that there is a curse in the family and calls the boy Nosferatu. But could it merely be this family superstition that drives Martin to drink blood? The political aspect in the movie is the look at urban decay. The entire town in which the movie is set is falling apart. In a "making of" featurette, Romero noted that the town's mill had closed and the whole place was economically depressed. Much like how "Night of the Living Dead" looked at race relations and the breakdown of the nuclear family, "Dawn of the Dead" poked fun at consumerism, and "Land of the Dead" showed how the rich hide themselves from the chaos and the common people have to fend for themselves, "Martin" shows the end of the American dream.Anyway, it's a really fun movie, and it's especially cool that they pulled this off with a crew of only about 15. Guerrilla filmmaking at its finest! Also starring Christine Forrest (Romero's wife) and Tom Savini.

Along with Travis Bickle, Martin (John Amplas) is surely one of the great on-screen loners. He is isolated from the society he inhabits because he is an eighty-five-year-old vampire. 'Martin' is set in Braddock, Pennsylvania and there is a wonderful sense of a town stuck in time while the rest of the world has moved on. Perhaps Braddock was once a booming steel town which has fallen on hard times.There is definitely something intensely disturbing in the way Martin attacks and drugs his victims before slicing their veins open with a razor blade and feeding upon them. The film contains some shocking violence so be warned; it is not for all tastes. 'Martin' has a wonderful sense of timelessness which has a lot to do with the black-and-white flashbacks and the dreamy, surreal quality of working-class Braddock. Instead of feeling that he is eighty-five, the flashbacks make us feel that Martin has lived since time immemorial, walking down his lonely road through the ages.One of the most interesting things about 'Martin' is Martin's relationship with Mrs. Santini (Elyane Nadeau). She is a desperately sad character who befriends Martin and penetrates his shyness. Another bond Martin forms is with the host of an all-night call-in radio talk show. Martin calls himself 'the Count' and discusses with the host quite matter-of-factly his behaviour as a modern vampire.Lincoln Maazel is excellent as the tyrannical, patriarchal Cuda who rules his household with an iron fist and who considers Martin the albatross around his neck, the unspoken shame and bane of his family. Christine Forrest - who would go on to marry the film's director, George A. Romero - offers solid support as Christina, Cuda's daughter. She befriends Martin warmly, ignoring his idiosyncrasies. The film's special effects makeup artist, Tom Savini, plays the role of Arthur who is Christina's unpleasant boyfriend.The Umbrella DVD edition has lots of juicy extras for you to get your teeth into but, much to my disappointment, there are no interviews with John Amplas or Elyane Nadeau (RIP). 'Martin' is one of my all-time favourite films.MAJOR SPOILER WARNING: There is crucial dialogue at the conclusion of the end credits.

Martin is set in the town of Braddock in Pennsylvania where autistic teenager Martin Madahas (John Amplas) is staying with his strict superstitious uncle Tada Cuda (Lincoln Maazel) & his grand daughter Christina (Christine Forrest). Uncle Cuda is convinced that Martin is a Vampire, he has strong religious belief's that make him believe Martin in an 84 year old Vampire because of an ancient family curse. Martin tries to tell his uncle otherwise & convince him that he is not a Vampire but Martin often has the urge to go out, stalk & pick a woman who he then drugs & drinks the blood of. As he meets & befriends other people Martin has a harder time hiding his gruesome secret...Written & directed by George A. Romero who also has a small role in the film as a priest Martin was made between his most famous film Night of the Living Dead (1968) & in my opinion his best Dawn of the Dead (1978) & was fairly early on in his career, judging by Romero's early films such as Martin you can see why he gained such a reputation in the horror genre since his films always seemed to be relevant, feel fresh & original, have strong ideas & themes about life & society & be damned fine horror films in their own right. I'm not quite sure where it all went wrong for Romero but that's a different story for another time. Martin is often a fascinating film for a variety of reasons, the way that it approaches Vampirism in a very factual way & setting & the issues it raises about forcing one own belief's onto other's since it's entirely plausible Martin kills & drinks blood purely because his family had told him all of his life that he does. Martin is as much a drama as anything else, the way Martin copes in the real world, the way he copes with his extremist uncle, sexual repression & the way he befriends other's, I especially like the way Martin has to call a radio phone-in show to talk about his problems which is just such a modern & easy phenomenon. The film never definitely says whether Martin is a real Vampire or not, it's left up in the air for the audience to decide & strong arguments could be made for both. The pace is sometimes slow but it's never less than gripping & the story, character's & dialogue really draw you in. A complex film with no straight answers that lets you make up your own mind, surely one of Romero's best & one of the starkest modern day Vampire films ever made.The film was shot in & around the real town of Braddock & it looks as if Romero just said that location looks good, set-up his camera & shot the scene. Set largely within a deprived neighbourhood the film has a gritty sometimes ugly look about it which all adds to atmosphere or hopelessness & banality. There are many documentary style scenes of everyday life just going on around the story which gave me a real sense of Martin happening in the real world. Apparently the original cut of Martin was over two & a half hours long & that version now no longer exists, Romero wanted to shoot the film entirely in black and white but the producers baulked at that, the Cuda house in the film belonged to sound man Tony Buba, the film was originally to have extensive narration but that idea was ditched after the films story & narrative stood-up in it's own right & I love the story that Cuda was named so because the sign next to the shop used in the film said 'The Cuda Co.' whereas in the original script the character was called Tata Voda.With a meagre budget of about $80,000 Martin was low budget but it's well made with some memorable scenes especially the opening murder of a woman on a train. There's a bit of gore including slashed arms & a broken branch stuck into someone's throat. There's some full frontal nudity too. The acting is pretty good especially from star Amplas.Martin is not a film for everyone, it's not a film everyone will get or appreciate but if your in the right mood & want something that might make you think & is a refreshing take on the Vampire legend then Martin might be the film for you. A great film for many different reasons.

Martin (1977) *** (out of 4) Some would call George Romero the greatest American horror director while others would label him a disappointment who got lucky with Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. No matter which side of the fence you're on the one thing I've always admired is that Romero always stuck to his guns and did things he own way. Between the first two Dead movies Romero had a string of disappointments, which included the rarely seen There's Always Vanilla as well as The Crazies and Season of the Witch. The year before Dawn was released the director did for vampires what he did for zombies and that film is the now cult shocker Martin.Martin (John Amplas) boards a train headed for Pittsburgh where he is going to be living with his Uncle who plans on saving his soul before killing him. While on the train we learn why Martin is to be killed. That night he sneaks into the room of a young lady, drugs her to sleep and then slices her wrist open in order to drink her blood. Martin is not only a troubled young man but he also believes that he is a vampire but without the fangs, he must resort to other ways of seeking blood.Martin is a film I first saw nearly ten years ago and I really didn't care too much for it. Over the years I was somewhat shocked to see that many consider this the best horror film of the decade so I was looking forward to this second viewing. While I found the film slightly better this time around there were still many problems I had with the film.Anyone slightly familiar with this film will know about the legendary 2 ½ hour cut of the film, which was cut down for theatrical release and has gone missing since then.I'm not exactly sure what was in this longer version but I think viewing it that way would be the only way to get the full impact that the director was going for. Martin contains some brilliant moments but it's quite clear that a lot's missing here and that keeps the film from being a total achievement. What's most interesting is Romero updating the vampire myths including killing off everything we've learned from previous films. Martin has no fangs, no beautiful women and the sunlight really doesn't bother him.The film moves at a snails pace but that's not to say this is a boring film. The slow pace, like that in Dawn of the Dead, helps tell the story and lets us get to know Martin, his actions and those around him. It's very interesting getting to know this troubled kid and how those around him react towards him. Some feel sympathy while others feel horror.Romero takes his time in telling the story, which again, it would be important to see the longer version. Even in this 95-minute version, we get enough clues to keep us mildly entertained throughout.The most fascinating moments are the actual stalk and murder scenes that Martin goes out on. The idea of a vampire having no fangs and having to resort to cutting wrists for blood works perfectly and adds all sorts of needed suspense. There's a wonderful sequence where Martin breaks in on a victim only to be confronted by someone else. I won't ruin the scene for everyone but Romero has a wonderful time playing the audience as well as the characters on screen. Another wonderful thing about the film is its atmosphere, which is able to make this appear like a classic Gothic tale. The atmosphere is thick throughout and really helps the pacing.The problem with Martin however is that there is clearly stuff missing and the story here really isn't fully explored, in this version at least. Towards the end of the film Martin begins to have a sexual affair with a woman and this here is sadly all too brief. I'm going to guess this is expanded in the longer version and I'm sure it is a very important moment so that the ending makes a bit more sense. Even the nutty Uncle is never fully brought to life and his beliefs in the subject are never really understood. There are other small characters that pop in that are never fully addressed.This 95-minute version of Martin is fun to watch due to various brilliant moments but in the end I can't help but feel we're watching a bastardized version of a better movie. The producer's needed a hit, they cut the film and sadly it appears the longer version is lost but as it stands, this longer version is perhaps one of the most important films that needs to be found. Martin works well but I suspect this longer version might very well be one of the greatest horror films ever made.