Martin boards a train from Indianapolis to Pittsburgh. He sedates a woman with an injection, strips her naked and drinks her blood. His elderly relative Tateh Cuda picks him up and they ride the train to Braddock. It's his new home with Tateh and cousin Christine after the death of his family. Tateh is a religious old man who tries to contain Martin using old style anti-vampire tactics. None of it works. Martin is forbidden to speak to Christine.

This is a wonderful twist on the vampire genre. This is a great contribution from George A. Romero that isn't a zombie movie. It is surprisingly fresh. The actors are amateurs but they fit their roles very well. I would love a remake by somebody with both edge and visual style. Romero did his best with this no-budget indie.

The unbalanced teenager Martin Mathias (John Amplas) travels to Braddock, Pennsylvania, by train. During the night, he breaks in a cabin and kills a passenger in a peculiar way, injecting drug with a syringe and draining her blood to drink in a careful way. Then he meets his old cousin Tateh Cuda (Lincoln Maazel) in the station and they go to Cuda's home where Martin will live. Martin was raised by his dysfunctional mother and believes that he is an 84 year-old vampire. The religious Cuda also believes that the teenager is Nosferatu and uses crosses and garlic in the house to protect himself and his granddaughter Christina (Christine Forrest) that lives with him from Martin. Along the days, Martin befriends Christina, who has a problematic relationship with her boyfriend Arthur (Tom Savini),while continues to attack persons every now and then. Further, he uses the telephone to tell the truth about vampires to a radio show. Martin has a love affair with Christina, but when she commits suicide, Cuda does not believe that his granddaughter killed herself.

"Martin" is a strange and bizarre low-budget vampire movie with a totally different story. There is a documentary on the DVD where George Romero gives details about the production that uses real locations. He also tells that "Martin" is his masterpiece. Martin's daydreams with black-and-white are ambiguous and the viewer never knows whether whey we recollections or his imagination. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Martin"

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.