Martin (1977)

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 HALLOWEEN REVIEWS 2024

Writer / Director: George A. Romero

Stars: John Amplas, Lincoln Maazel, Christine Forrest, Elyane Nadeau, Tom Savini, Sara Venable, Fran Middleton, Al Levitsky, George A. Romero



Young Martin (John Amplas) comes to the town of Braddock, Pennsylvania to stay with an elderly cousin (Lincoln Maazel) who preserves old-world ways and believes Martin to be a Nosferatu. 



He just might be right.

 


Martin definitely kills and he definitely has a taste for blood…but his ultimate nature is never definitively revealed.

 


The film begins with a murder, and the gritty way that Martin dispatches his victim, lacking any supernatural elements, is powerful evidence that he is a very sick and deluded man. 



The black and white interludes that represent Martin’s breaks with reality could either be memories of vampiric adventures in Europe or deluded fantasies of power.

 


George Romero has grounded the iconic evil figure of the vampire in the form of a sad, psychotic young man in a depressing, deteriorating suburb as if to force us to confront the reality that ultimate evil lies within human nature and deny us the comfort that may come with distancing ourselves from that evil by incarnating it in some other form.

 


Amplas gives a quietly affecting performance that never loses my sympathy and evokes the quality of tragedy; the horror of this film comes not only from anticipation of the fate of Martin’s victims but also from the prospect that Martin himself will slide further into his own personal hell.



















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