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".
“母性光辉”对自我的刺杀，成为母亲、成为自己，或许只能二选一。大量情绪化大特写以及暗喻一层层揭开作为母亲虽然羞耻但不得不承认的“伤疤”。
NYFF59 沉浸式的母职体验让人透不过气
恕我不能理解其中深意，并且觉得有点浪费时间。就感觉年轻的Lela很有味道，年老的Lela总有点我不喜欢的味道，就像我也不喜欢她演的女王。
我一直很讨厌看到妈妈疲惫的姿态 让我觉得那是我造成的 确实是我造成的 但我不想为她的疲惫感到愧疚 所以我真的不想回家 colman跟我妈妈长得很像让我很想哭
我觉得拍得很对我的胃口，让我聚精会神地看了俩小时。埃莱娜费兰特的《碎片》里写道，“碎片就是感觉痛苦不安，这种不安源于一些乱七八糟的事情，我们的声音会淹没在这堆碎片中”，我觉得本片就很好地表现了母职中的各种碎片。做父母是需要很多爱和勇气才能承担起责任的，如果这样的责任被强加在身上，人就可能会被生活的碎片撕裂，就像女主说的一样。我觉得把孩子培养成片中一样妈妈一走远、玩具一丢就崩溃几星期的样子是很失败的，不过培养成我这样拒绝任何attachment的无情样子就是另一个极端了；大概只有有时间有精力搞平衡的父母才会有相对正常的孩子。镜头语言除了某些大特写略做作之外，转换节奏和人物拍摄都很自然。剧本也很自然，就算没有埃莱娜书里标志性的人物独白，我也能理解女主表情和行为，感觉和演员配合得特别出色。
实际感受7分，为导演＋一⭐
想对20岁左右的年轻人说，你们真的做好当父母的准备了吗？如果没有，就不要急着生孩子，不要为了生孩子而生孩子。
故事拼凑的乱七八糟 最后情绪无法被烘托 玩偶倒是恶心到我 三星都给科曼阿姨
掺杂了多条线的母女关系和女性个人的解读，稍微有点虎头蛇尾但大部分时间引人入胜。越来越喜欢Maggie了。
致郁系电影。整个电影的调调都是彷徨和无助。看到片中才明白，原来是在描写女人在丧偶式婚姻和自己学术追求之间的挣扎。不是很能理解岛上黑帮漂亮老婆在片中的意图。只是为了制造悬疑惊悚的吗？片中通过女主角的话语，也了解到她对不承担家庭养育责任男人的鄙视，以及对年轻妈妈的怜悯关怀。片子很文艺，走很多意向风，同样的题材在在中国拍大概更会拍成一部drama。这部电影不是特别我的菜，但Olivia 实在是太会表演了，很有感染力
致郁系电影。整个电影的调调都是彷徨和无助。看到片中才明白，原来是在描写女人在丧偶式婚姻和自己学术追求之间的挣扎。不是很能理解岛上黑帮漂亮老婆在片中的意图。只是为了制造悬疑惊悚的吗？片中通过女主角的话语，也了解到她对不承担家庭养育责任男人的鄙视，以及对年轻妈妈的怜悯关怀。片子很文艺，走很多意向风，同样的题材在在中国拍大概更会拍成一部drama。这部电影不是特别我的菜，但Olivia 实在是太会表演了，很有感染力
想象公路上的热浪，透过它看世界，一切都会随之晃动变形。片中，被抛弃的女儿就是莱达的“热浪”。内疚是可怕的，它无时不刻地折磨着你，吞噬着你，无处可逃，无法弥补，可回到当年的绝望处境，选择很可能还是同样的。
8/10。当你有了窒息感与压迫感，总要靠喘一口气来疏解，千万别憋着。
正如电影里所说，作为妈妈的过程是“unnatural”的，尤其当你是个natural person，自我和母性的拉扯就会显示出不被他人所理解的异常。然而你知道，那不过是寻常，是无数女性经历过或正在经历的寻常。
3.5，虽然还没看《平行母亲》但感觉这部更适合叫这个名字，演员们的发挥都很棒，不过母亲角色的挣扎是不是可以拍的更深刻一点？再加上原本就有的细腻会更好
好了好了我知道当妈很烦啦，好像第一次真有电影表现出这种烦？这个蛮可贵的。很多小段落都有很有趣，看电影的部分，和达妹几次交谈，和Will，削个蛇皮当然也是啦。但整体就挺闷的怎么回事。
当我们以局外人的身份审视“女人对于家庭的责任”时，女人出轨，对子女的不负责任，为了事业抛弃家庭，都成为她被我们唾骂和谴责的理由。
女性的视角下年轻母亲的挣扎。整体是很情绪化的，大量手持特写跟拍，持续加入闪回，却语焉不详，结尾收得颇为潦草。
一位infj的母亲 :( 聪明女性的困境 太敏感 女性视角的一次美好发挥
暗处的女儿、出走的母亲，科尔曼深度剖析一个出走母亲的心理，演技没问题，但我的观感却越来越差，不是因为大家说的压抑或窒息，仅仅是因为开篇配乐给了我太高的期待。
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