Martin (John Amplas), a young man who looks around 20-years-old, boards a train in Indianapolis, Indiana for New York. At night, he breaks into a sleeping car and sedates a woman with a syringe full of narcotics. She struggles, but he tells her not to struggle or be upset because she wont feel pain. After a few minutes, the woman falls asleep, and Martin has sex with the unconscious woman. Afterwards, he slices her wrists with a razor blade so he can drink her blood. The woman bleeds to death in her sleep.
In the morning, the train stops in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where Martin disembarks. He is met by Tata Cuda (Lincoln Maazel) an elderly and hostile old man who claims to be his cousin from the Old World. Together, they travel by another train to the town of Braddock, a dying industrial suburb. They walk to Cuda's large house where he shows Martin his living quarters. Cuda then accuses Martin of being an 84-year-old vampire from his old country. He has taken in Martin because he is family, but tells him, "First I will save your soul. Then I shall destroy you." Martin denies being a vampire and implies that Cuda is merely his uncle rather than his cousin. Cuda then puts up strings of garlic on the doors to his and his granddaughter's room, and then holds up a small cross when Martin approaches him. Martin takes away the cross, and even takes a bite of the garlic mocking these attempts by saying bitterly, "There's no real magic... ever". Cuda tells Martin that he can come and go as he pleases. But he also warns Martin that he will kill him if he kills anyone in Braddock. He also tells Martin to stay away from his granddaughter Christine (Christine Forrest), whom arrives home from her job that evening.
Cuda introduces Christine to Martin, but also warns her to stay away from him. But Christine instead strikes up a friendship with Martin who confides in her about his vampire heritage. When Cuda later confirms Martin's claims to be a vampire, Christine, not surprisingly, refuses to believe either one. She thinks that Cuda and the other members of her family have driven Martin to insanity by making him think that he is a vampire. It is never revealed if Martin really is a vampire, or just a shy and lonely youth with troubled issues. Christine is the only person that Martin gets the courage to talk to. When Christine's boyfriend Arthur (Tom Savini) arrives at the house for dinner, Martin stops talking and backs away despite Arthur's attempt at a conversation. Christine later confides in Martin that she hopes to leave Braddock someday with Arthur, even though Martin points out that Arthur treats her badly and is both verbally and physically abusive towards her.
When Christine sees that Martin won't talk to anyone else, she buys him a phone which he installs in his room. Martin begins to repeatingly call a radio talk show where he describes what it's like to be a vampire. He becomes known on the radio as "the Count" to all the listeners. But the patronizing host (Michael Gornick) thinks he's just crazy.
Martin gets a job at Cuda's grocery store of stocking shelves, hauling boxes around, and even gets to be a delivery boy for some of the customers. One of his customers is a certain Abby Santini (Elyane Nadeau), who becomes taken in with Martin. She is a very friendly young woman who is depressed when she tells Martin that her husband is unfaithful. But Martin still does not have the nerve to talk with her, so she is happy to have someone to confide in with her life problems. Martin phones the radio show host to describe his infatuation with the housewife and senses that she wants to have sex with him. When the radio show host asks Martin if it is a sexual problem that he has involving women criticizing him during sex, Martin replies that he has never had sex with a woman who was awake.
One day, Martin travels by train to outside Braddock to look for victims. At a supermarket, he follows a young woman (Sarah Venable) home to her posh suburban house. He sees the woman's husband (Richard Rubenstein) leave for a long business trip, and Martin decides this would be the right time for more feeding. Martin returns to the house after dark and breaks in through the garage door. But it is Martin who gets the surprise when he bursts into her bedroom to find her in bed with her adulterous lover Lewis (Al Levitsky). After a vicious struggle, Martin jabs both of them with hyprodermic needles with narcotics, and waits for the drugs to take affect. He drags the unconscious body of Lewis from the house to a clump of trees across the street where he kills him by shoving a broken tree branch into his neck and drinks his blood. Martin returns to the house where he has sex with the unconscious woman. But out of compassion and pity, he decides to let her live.
Martin begins to have romantic monochrome visions of his vampire past (real or imagined), where he drained blood from a young woman and was chased through the streets of a nameless European town by a torch-lit mob.
During one Sunday at church, Cuda brings home Father Howard (George A. Romero) who asks him about the possibility of exorcism and demon possession. Father Howard calls upon the elderly Father Zulemans (Clifford Forrest, Jr.) over at Cuda's request. Together, Cuda and Zulemans confront Martin his bedroom and attempt to perform an exorcism on him. At this point, Martin remembers (another real or imaginary flashback), in the Old Country of people trying to perform an exorcism on him, and he flees them. Martin then flees from Cuda and Zuelmas as well. A little later that night, Martin terrorizes Cuda in a children's playground when he puts on a Dracula cape and puts false fangs into his mouth to pretend that he really is a vampire.
One day, Martin finally musters the courage to talk with Mrs. Santini during a routine delivery to her house where he tells her that he's aware of her attempts to seduce him and wants now to have sex with her. After having sex for the first time, Mrs. Santini becomes more depressed for she tells Martin that her husband just left her because she discovered that she cannot bear children, and that her desires towards him are based on sex and nothing else. But Martin wants to stay with her and help her move on with her life. Martin tells the radio show host about his affair with the housewife and that he no longer has the urge to attack other women.
Meanwhile, Arthur meets with Cuda and tells him that he wants Christine to leave town with him so they can get married and start a family. But Christine becomes angry at Cuda when he tells Arthur that insanity runs in their family and he shouldn't consider having children with her. Shortly afterwards, Christine packs up and leaves Braddock for New York with Arthur despite Martin telling her that Arthur is abusive towards her. But her mind is made up. Before leaving, Christine tells Martin that she really has no ill feelings towards him and just wants to make a fresh start with her life. She says goodbye to him and promises to write. But Martin knows that with an abusive and possessive man in Christine's life, she probably won't.
Depressed over losing his one true friend, Martin phones the radio show host and tells him that he's getting "shaky" and wants to go out looking for more victims. That night, Martin travels to a rough crime-ridden area of Pittsburgh and attacks two derelicts in a alley, injecting them with narcotics. He kills one of them by silting the bum's wrist and drinking his blood. Martin is about to kill the second one when a police car shows up and gives chase. Martin narrowly escapes during a long chase on foot which leads from the garbage strew streets and through a local store. Martin runs into an old warehouse where a drug deal is going down. A shootout between the two cops and the three thugs begins where all of them are killed, leaving Martin as the sole survivor who casually walks away from the carnage.
One day, Martin finds Mrs. Santini dead in her bathtub, after she had slit her writs with a razor blade. Martin anonymously calls the police to report the body and leaves. He phones the radio show host one final time to say that he really doesn't need friends or people to talk to for he is his own person. But when Cuda learns about Mrs. Santini's suicide, is mistakenly thinks Martin killed her and made it look like a suicide as he's done before. Cuda walks into Martin's room while he is asleep and kills him by hammering a wooden stake through Martin's heart.
Cuda buries Martin's body in his back garden, while over the closing credits various voices from people are heard talking to the radio show host asking the whereabouts of "the Count".
Guillermo del Toro這一次最大的錯誤，應該是過度放縱自己了吧，馬戲團部分戲份過長，導致結構不平衡，前後割裂如兩部電影，而且這一次連符號也沒玩好，我一度以為他在《水形物語》玩水之後要開始玩火了，然而火這一符號又在電影中段消失了許久。明明聚集了那麼多優秀演員，卻把角色都寫得頗為扁平，結果沒有一個有正常水平的發揮，暴殄天物了。
看过原版就觉得这版前面的铺垫有点太细了…… 没必要 收尾倒是干脆利落 以及我很想吐槽Bradley Cooper都算是被爆头了吧 怎么还能逃出一片生天 有些过分了 大魔王gaslighting Cooper倒是挺好玩儿 p.s. 我十分心水鲁尼玛拉的小红帽
值得一看，但要夸真夸不出什么来，中规中矩的良心制作吧，也只能这样说。
脆弱心理的下岗人员，心机婊的实习生，混乱的同事炮友网都让观众同情哈登。
看的津津有味，但有两点我觉得有待商榷，第一是莫莉打了他两巴掌就走了，第二是结尾有点弱，总觉得可以处理的更好。
是长了点（前半段注意力很分散我...）但后半段渐入佳境 陀螺的视听风格演绎心理周旋很抓人 （感到Mara似乎被定型在某种character里...
真是boring的故事boring的人物，就这种俗烂剧本需要请一堆大牌明星？翻拍也不是这么搞得吧
故事不错，但真没必要这么长，马戏团部分1个小时大可不必。陀螺你还是去搞环太2吧... | 大魔王“I‘ll live.’”
美术服装很出彩，每个演员都在飙演技。故事情节很简单，没有什么特别的高潮，但并不影响陀螺讲故事的能力。
新版將原版曖昧又神秘的氣氛一掃而空，開首的序幕就將一切解釋得明白。馬戲團和大都會辯證式設計更突顯Toro 的作者性，對怪物世界的依戀，「怪物」作為對照現實人心，陰翳反照光亮裡頭的黑點，與大城市的浮誇裝潢。47年版在塔羅與連串神秘迷團包圍下，是遮蓋不了男主角的利慾薰心，刻劃在Tyrone Power 臉上盡是向上爬的野心，試問Bradley Cooper美國大男孩臉又怎做到正邪兼備，讓觀眾又投入又生氣？新版增加弒父，不論是親生還是技藝上的父親也好，讓電影淪為廉價佛洛伊德主義，對兩位女主角的描寫，強行拉上不必要的三角戀誤解，也減弱了女主角們的自主性，Toro 內心是能與怪物相伴不加任何道德判斷的人，他可以拍出宅男拯救世界前的掙扎，拍「若你喜歡怪人，其實我很美。」的童話故事，沉淪的事與罪究感、人如何成為怪物，也不是他世界觀所能及。
美工依然是标致性的陀螺style，配乐稍满，不如the shape of water，另节奏实过于拖沓了。
就是照着原版翻拍了一下 没什么太大新意 但道具做得还不错 开头嘉年华的机关有点惊艳 整体来讲演员不如原版有魅力 Cooper在我这里是真的毫无吸引力= =
这种暗黑风格很容易让人迷幻，前半截稍微有些拖沓，但故事完成度很高，想来也是如此，人到了此处，自然就会迷失，塔罗预言一般。
陀螺对这些黑色奇诡的东西是真爱啊，他心里一定也有一个打包好的大篷车，随时准备扎营开秀吧，能通过影像来实现，再想想他那个装满收藏的荒凉山庄，挺羡慕的就是说。Stan的一生也像是一个讲着悲惨故事的秀台，一个畸胎标本罐子，一个恐怖装置通道那样，利用着观众的弱点也燃烧着自己的命运，一步一步走向错位的循环。I was born for it，啧啧啧。
已经被大魔王的红唇迷死了！（电影画面赏心悦目，故事剧情一般也能沉浸看完）
太长了，一共也没多少情节是怎么拍出两个半小时的。而且画面虽然没太多黄暴，但是看到结尾莫名恶心，可能是因为陀螺的某些恶趣味
三星半。是边缘人乡巴佬对美国梦的消解，无处不在的性格侧写和土法精神分析透示着上世纪40年代的美国人困在初始的父权制资本主义里，他们中的多数会用一生去疗伤，投射到电影里就是一个又一个不惜欺骗自己的“可怜人”，所以不光是男主角斯坦用存在主义消解美国梦，一般人也在这样的体系里自欺欺人。技术层面还是抓人的，前一小时的马戏团像是陀螺的个人趣味秀，优秀的美术和摄影创造出一个残酷又美丽的嘉年华。但是也拖慢了电影的节奏，甚至出现了很多无用角色，这也造成了虚假高潮和无用伏笔的问题，不过最后更改了原著结局，让电影“noir性”十足的同时，也告别了过去那种天真到有些不切实际的男女关系，也算没有白翻拍。
期待过高以至于有点失望，不过这顶级的服化道倒是很棒
“墨西哥三杰”里，我最无感的就是陀螺。新电影看完，更无感了。和原版没差，他“翻拍”了一遍，没有创新。
然而反观其内容本身，又一定程度上为其概念化、系统化的主题结构所束缚，其体量本身不足以承载如此繁杂的人物象征，亦难以在兼顾其系统的同时维持戏剧现实的节奏，故而在一些段落（由以高潮戏为甚）的处理上略显琐碎，繁杂，反而缺失了力量。
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