Martin (also known internationally as Wampyr) is a 1977 American horror film written and directed by George A. Romero, and starring John Amplas. Its plot follows a troubled young man who believes himself to be a vampire. Shot in 1976, Martin was Romero's fifth feature film and followed The Crazies (1973).
Romero said that Martin was the favorite of all his films. The film is also the first collaboration between George Romero and special effects artist Tom Savini. While a prosecution for obscenity did not result, the film was seized and confiscated in the UK under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959 during the video nasty panic.
Plot[]
As the film opens, a young man, travelling on an overnight train from Indianapolis to Pittsburgh, sedates a young woman with a syringe full of narcotics, slices her wrist with a razor blade, and drinks her blood. The next morning he is met at the Pittsburgh train station by a mysterious man in white who escorts him away, whereupon the pair board a local train destined for Braddock.
The young man is Martin, who has romantic monochrome visions of vampiric seductions and torch-lit mobs, but it is impossible to tell if these visions are real or imagined.
The mysterious man in white is Martin's suspicious, old granduncle, Tateh Cuda. Due to the death of Martin's immediate family in Indianapolis, Cuda has reluctantly agreed to give Martin room and board as he is the closest living relative and Martin will share the house with him and cousin Christine in the dying town of Braddock.
Cuda is a Lithuanian Catholic who treats Martin like an Old World vampire. He forbids his nephew from speaking to Christine and tries unsuccessfully to repel him with traditional methods: strings of garlic, and holy objects like a crucifix and blessed statues. Martin mocks these attempts and says bitterly, "There's no real magic... ever." Martin also says forcefully to Cuda that he is a family member, not someone to be treated like a "Nosferatu". Cuda warns that if Martin murders anyone in Braddock, he will stake him through the heart.
Martin works in Tateh Cuda's butcher shop. While making deliveries he meets several local women, most distinctly the lonely housewife, Mrs. Santini. He runs from her attempts at seducing him but is curious and returns to her, as she is one of Cuda's best customers. He seeks advice on women from a radio DJ, who calls him "The Count", and Martin tries to set the record straight about vampires, saying there is no "magic stuff." The DJ realizes his listeners consider Martin a hit.
Eventually overpowered by his thirst, Martin sneaks out to Pittsburgh and targets a woman he sees at a local market. Believing her to be alone while her husband is on business, he breaks into her house but discovers her in bed with a lover. He deftly takes care of the situation, feeds on the man, rapes the woman as she is unconscious after he drugs her and carefully hides his tracks before leaving.
Martin eventually gives in to what he calls the "sexy stuff" and begins a full-fledged affair with Mrs. Santini, losing interest in other women as victims to feed his hunger.
Christine, frustrated by her disagreement with Tateh Cuda over the family superstition as well as her unhappy relationship with her boyfriend, played by make-up artist Tom Savini, moves out.
On a feeding binge in the city, in which Martin targets two derelicts for the first time, he is almost caught, narrowly escaping as he leads police to a drug den. Safely back at home, he visits Mrs. Santini only to find she has committed suicide.
Tateh Cuda, believing Martin to be the culprit, stakes him through the heart and buries him in the backyard. As the credits roll, radio callers can be heard asking what has happened to "the Count." The final shot shows Tateh Cuda in his garden, over what appears to be freshly turned soil, probably Martin's grave.