Martin (1977 film)

Martin
File:MartinDVD.jpg DVD cover
Directed by	George A. Romero
Written by	George A. Romero
Produced by	Richard P. Rubinstein
Starring	John Amplas Lincoln Maazel Christine Forrest Elyane Nadeau Tom Savini
Cinematography	Michael Gornick
Edited by	George A. Romero
Music by	Donald Rubinstein Goblin (Italian version)
Distributed by	Libra Films International
Release dates	July 7, 1978
Running time	95 min.
Language	English
Budget	$800,000

Martin is a 1977 horror film written and directed by George A. Romero. The film is notable as the first collaboration between George Romero and special effects artist Tom Savini. Romero is also on record as saying Martin is his favorite of all his films. It was filmed on location in Pittsburgh.

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1977 and was released in US cinemas on July 7, 1978.

Plot

In Indianapolis, Indiana, a twentyish young man named Martin (John Amplas) boards a train bound for New York City. That night, he breaks into a sleeping car where he attacks and injects a young woman with a drug (probably chloral hydrate, a mild but quick relaxant). She struggles, but he tells her to relax because she will not feel pain. When she finally falls asleep, Martin has sex with the woman. He slits her wrist with a utility razor and drinks her blood. The woman apparently bleeds to death. Though Martin commits increasingly violent slayings over the course of the film, it is never explicitly revealed whether his vampirism is real or delusional.

The next morning, the train stops in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where Martin disembarks, and is met by an hostile old man who introduces himself as Tada Cuda (Lincoln Maazel). The two take another train to the town of Braddock, a decaying industrial suburb of Pittsburgh. They walk to Cuda's house where he shows Martin his living quarters. Cuda then accuses Martin of being an 84-year-old vampire from the Old World, and tells Martin that he has taken him in because he is family, but promises to cure him of his blood-cravings. Martin denies being a vampire, but the overzealous Cuda hangs garlic over his bedroom door and holds up a cross when Martin approaches him. Martin takes away the cross and bites the garlic, saying that there is no truth to the vampire legends. Cuda tells Martin that he can come and go as he pleases, but sternly warns Martin that he will kill him should he kill anyone in Braddock.

Martin meets Cuda's granddaughter Christine (Christine Forrest) who lives in the house. Cuda tells Martin to stay away from her, and tells her to stay away from Martin because he is a vampire. An incredulous Christine thinks that Cuda and the rest of the family drove Martin to insanity by making him believe to be a vampire. Martin begins talking with Christine, who buys Martin a telephone since Martin is apparently too shy to talk to anyone in person. Martin repeatedly calls a live radio show to discuss his problematic life as a vampire, and becomes known as "the Count" to the listeners, but the patronizing radio host thinks he is crazy. Martin learns that Christine wants to leave town with her boyfriend Arthur (Tom Savini), even though Arthur treats Christine rather badly.

Over the next few days, Martin works in Cuda's local grocery store, stocking shelves and delivering packages. One of the regular customers is the flirtatious Abby Santini, who confides in the painfully shy Martin about her unfaithful husband. Martin phones the radio show to discuss Abby's apparent desire to have sex with him. When the radio host asks Martin if he has had problems with sex, Martin replies that he never had sex with a conscious woman.

One day, Martin travels by train outside Braddock to a neighboring middle-class suburb to seek victims. He follows one woman from a local supermarket to her house, where the woman says goodbye to her husband leaving on a business trip. Martin breaks into the house later that evening, only to find the woman in bed with her boyfriend Lewis. Martin attacks them, injecting them with sedatives, and waits for them to fall asleep. Martin angrily drags Lewis from the house, killing him and draining his blood by stabbing him in the neck with a wooden tree branch. He returns to have sex with the unconscious housewife. Out of pity, Martin spares her and quietly leaves the house.

In a surreal series of flashbacks (either real or imagined) Martin drains blood from a drugged young woman in a mansion and is chased by people bearing torches. In another flashback, Martin is accosted by -- and flees from-- the same people who tried to perform an exorcism on him. A few days later, after Cuda talks with a young priest named Father Howard (played by director George A. Romero in a cameo role), he brings home the elderly Father Zulemas to perform an exorcism on Martin, who runs away. Martin then frightens Cuda by wearing a Dracula costume, complete with cape and false fangs.

Finally, Martin musters the courage during a food delivery to Abby Santini's house to have sex with her, but Abby is not satisfied by the lustful fling and informs Martin that her husband has just left her. In subsequent conversations with the radio show host, Martin claims to be satisfied by the sex and claims not to have the same blood-cravings for women. In the meantime, Christine becomes angry when Cuda tells Arthur that insanity runs in their family so he should not consider having children with her. Christine packs up and moves out of Cuda's house with Arthur to New York City, despite Martin's objections that Arthur is abusive. She says goodbye to Martin, promising to write to him. But Martin knows that she probably will not write, with a possessive man like Arthur.

Shaken by having lost his one true friend, Martin goes to a rough section of Pittsburgh where he attacks two derelicts, killing one and slitting his wrists with a glass shard to drink his blood. When Martin is about to kill the second derelict, a police car shows up and pursues Martin, who narrowly escapes and hides in a warehouse where a drug deal is in progress. The policemen and the thugs are killed in an ensuing gun battle, and Martin escapes.

A few days later, Martin finds Abby Santini dead in her bathtub where she slit her wrists. Believing that Martin killed Abby Santini, Cuda sneaks into Martin's bedroom, and kills him by driving a wooden stake through his heart. Cuda buries Martin's body in his garden, while a voiceover of the radio talk show host is asking his listeners about the whereabouts of "the Count".

Alternate versions

Originally, the film ran longer than the final version, at 2 hours and 45 minutes. The original release was entirely in black and white. No copies of this cut exist to Romero's knowledge.

Much like Dawn of the Dead, Martin was edited for the European market, under the title of Wampyr. This version is only available in Italian dialogue, and is rumored to be edited by Dario Argento. This version's score was performed by the band Goblin.

Cast

Actor	Role
John Amplas	Martin
Lincoln Maazel	Tada Cuda
Christine Forrest	Christina
Elyane Nadeau	Mrs. Santini
Tom Savini	Arthur
Sara Venable	Housewife Victim
Fran Middleton	Train Victim
Al Levitsky	Lewis
George A. Romero	Father Howard

External link

• The Internet Home of Martin Mathias
• Martin at IMDb