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".
思悼、南汉山城、茲山鱼谱这三部真的是韩国历史剧的神作
“昌大啊，活成不断向上飞的鹤也不算坏事，但是即便身上沾满污水泥浆，也选择活得像兹山一样，虽外表看折黑暗，却生机勃勃自由自在，也未曾不是有意义的事啊！”这部电影通过一个故事深度探讨了儒家文化与王权之间的事，见人、见物、见天地。韩国与中国在文化上有很多相似之处，又完全是两个不同文化的国家，真是微妙。2021.10.11
其实讲到西学东渐，洋学中用，讲新旧文化的对撞，讲士大夫知识阶层的知识体系的冲突，讲基督教和儒教的冲突，等等，总之这是电影一个比较有意思的选题，有太多可以讲的东西。但是这部电影，很多东西都是靠演员的台词讲出来的，而不是演出来的，这是缺点。说实话，电影还可以再深刻一点，能探讨的东西还可以再全面一些。一部电影用2个小时确实难以在有限的时间内讲太多东西。
价值观的冲突只是六个字，但它们会像鬼魅之手一样影响你做的每个决定，左还是右，前还是后，躺还是跑，去还是留，平和还是激烈，它是我们如何活着的帆。
好有趣，确实我国还没拍过这样一部反映贬谪名士的优秀电影。
第一个在电影里公开反对反对朱子理学的东亚三国，读了读韩国简史，确实是自上而下又自下而上的社会启蒙认知，日本的sh运动是单纯的自上而下的，因此还是保留右翼的皇族贵族。这种片不要再说应该拍的是我国，鲁迅早在100年前就把剧本改写的都写好了👍
真神奇啊，文学性真喜欢。黑白质感也喜欢。虽然韩国电影的几种老毛病还有，但已经是看完有余味的作品了。
为何而学？功名利禄？外在身份？改变命运？而那些知识若是盔甲，遮掩内心的尘埃，离“人为何而来，为何而去”渐渐远去呢？
20210530。21年目前最佳影片。最后写给昌大的信：像仙鹤一样生活固然好，但像黑色兹山一样，沾满泥土和污水，仍来者不拒地包容一切，也是有意义的吧。
和电影《柳如是》中对钱谦益的刻画很像，晚明的文人和满清时代朝鲜文人的价值追求近乎重合，大概这就是儒文化圈的影响力？其实最近越发迷恋儒家文化浸润中的知识分子的精神追求。我一直以为，这种追求是在通过一种内敛、克制的方式来完成在一个并不通达显明的世道对自己存在价值的保护。虽然我不是什么知识分子，但我认为这种文化对我是有用的，对每一个企图在某种社会环境下诚实活下去的人都是有用了。它和西方的自由、存在主义在我这里奇妙地相通了。它们将会是支撑我一生的宝贵财富。
原来和《思悼》《素媛》是同一导演李濬(jun四声)益，怪不得功力深厚。讲文化冲突，儒学是为王权服务，如何看透这一点，看透后如何。导演李濬益在采访中说，“丁若钟把天主教当作宗教，丁若镛将其作为性理学的补充品吸收，但丁若铨把西学当作哲学来接受。”这么一看，就明白多了。
看的时候一直有种感觉，当今强国的不少民众对假各种名义的统治术买单，天真地盲从官方说辞，和昌大对“明德亲民”旗号最初天真的相信又有何区别？这部影片平和地与观众探讨知识用于实用的价值，探一探「反抗」和「犬儒」中间的路到底有多宽。 @2022-01-27 19:18:31
#R# 4.0分。比《思悼》把极具历史张力的故事私人化后显得不称的电影好不少，偏远小岛上的流放故事尺寸颇为宜人。丁若铨有“见众生”的德性，抗拒罗马教廷通过北京教会传下的禁止祭祀先人的指令，因为这将笃信教众的性命变成对抗的筹码（或许政治化的儒教与天主教是一样的）；这种德性多少在张昌大身上得到继承，触发他最终归隐的导火索。在影响时，较宽的画幅充当了某种卷轴（或许在中近景中他也充当疲惫的眼睑），而前半段的山水景色和海滩俯拍处理更具有山水画/工笔画的质感；特别要说起两次类似的处理，第一次是丁若铨望月，镜头推远上抬左晃后下沉完成了丁若铨从室内到观月处的变幻，第二次则是丁若铨与张昌大的知识交换，镜头右移上抬瞄准海鸟后风云变幻再下沉，前后在讨论同一话题，个人感觉自然第一次更好。另我不喜欢几抹做作的彩色，尤其青鸟。
这部片子也太类型化了，又是只讲设定，没讲人物和故事。丁若铨一边喊着众生平等，一边又极尽傲慢，前半程全靠地位和知识优势PUA张昌大；配合张昌大的父亲就是一本中老年男性傲慢“鱼谱”。拍出思悼的那位导演去哪了？
当然，在一个一天到晚都赢麻了、YYDS、实在是绝绝子的国家里面，有些人的确只能至死不变。
看短评都是在谈论儒家与西学东渐，我受到的触动是老师和昌大俩人这种情谊，尤其是最后给昌大的信，泪目
震撼激动琢琢磨磨之后，才明白，对于个体，这片子是如此"离经叛道"，却也是何等的优秀。不左不右，不守不狂，被催毁的灵肉探寻最正确最高贵的生存主旨，"好的要留下，好的要学会，才是正道"是最难以达成的作为。这部生物学小册子属性科普，而背后是付出一切追寻真知和大道的悲情人生，真不是庶民和强权可以接受的，却是人类文明能够发展至今必然发生的。
我知道我希望的那一天会来，但不是现在···从哥白尼到丁若铨，真理和真理的冲突从未停止···
哈哈哈哈，我竟然看出了一股“搞创作理论的真的见到很多有价值的题材时很冲动很纯真”的味道。还像极了电影青年，以及电影青年寻找合伙人的那种过程。
看短评都是在谈论儒家与西学东渐，我受到的触动是老师和昌大俩人这种情谊，尤其是最后给昌大的信，泪目
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