Horror-ble!: Martin

As a lead-up to Halloween, the next few weeks will include some posts on horror films! Hope you enjoy and find one to your liking.

The action in George Romero's "Martin" begins on a night train to New York, as a young man, Martin (John Amplas), drugs a woman then slashes her with a razor, faking a suicide. It is not entirely apparent if he actually has sex with her or if he drinks her blood. He is met in Pittsburgh by a dapper older gentleman who takes him to a house, where he accuses Martin of being a vampire. But all the man's religious and vampire talismans are wasted as Martin grabs the garlic and cross, reminding the old man he is a cousin of his. The old man continues in his assertions that the family married into vampires and Martin is one of them.

There are flashbacks in black and white to an incident where a young man who looks like Martin is being exorcised by a priest and onlookers. Like in the present, this young man is unaffected by the cleansing.

Martin continues to live in the house with the old relative and his friendly granddaughter, helping out in the corner store they own by delivering groceries to housewives. While in the house Martin is an average guy and the granddaughter is pretty sympathetic to him--she has heard these family stories for ages too and thinks her grandfather is crazy for thinking Martin is "Nosferatu."

A creepy encounter with a woman doesn't go as Martin expects and he has to improvise.  Suddenly there is a voiceover conversation, and it appears that Martin has called in to a late night radio show to discuss his vampirism. The host doesn't seem fazed by Martin and wants to meet him. Martin calls in several times to talk and although it is somewhat of a release for him, he is always scared of revealing too much.  He starts an affair with a lonely housewife, but still needs to satisfy his bloodlust.  Later the grandfather blames Martin for the death of a woman and does something just as horrible as what he accuses Martin of doing.


This low budget film that isn't too bad as it has a pretty original storyline. The production values are not flashy, and there is not too much of the gore often associated with a inexpensively-made horror movie. All the actors are unknowns to me, some may even have been non-actors. The three main actors playing Martin, the grandfather and granddaughter were all good. A supporting actor also did stunts and special effects and several of the other actors such as the housewives were also pretty good.