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".
本片涉及的尺度全面突破，见血的金句频出，讨论了众多议题，完美地将阶级压迫、程序正义、政治阴谋、体制谋杀、舆论煽动、媒体愚弄、乌合之众等等，通过一具被焚毁的女尸，逐步串联起来，格局由小见大，剧本架构成熟，叙事手法高超，悬念在猝不及防间，带来了极强劲的反转，呼应了前文一切镜头伏笔，最重要是升华了故事主题的广度与深度，深入分析社会劣根，探索上层意识操控，彻底剖开政客与百姓之间根深蒂固的矛盾。
媒体在争相报道，电视台在讨论，一个关于女性的案子引发了全国的关注，最后水落石出，真相大白。
叙事技法挺拙劣的，宝莱坞式的形式感犹存，并不对胃口。但即便如此，这道直面社会议题的大杂烩已经足以震荡观众的味蕾。其原因，才是当下观众或不是观众的人们，所面临的困境与无力——揭露出这些，是本片对国内观影环境的最大价值。
优点说完了，作为电影，拍得真的不怎么滴。印度似乎很喜欢这种无数反转的剧本，就像之前的调音师，这种戏码用到点子上画龙点睛，但用烂了，除了不可避免的数不清的bug以外，我说好听了就是工匠感，说难听了就是消费智商来了，这故事拍得就是流水账，只需要刻意隐藏信息然后一个一个抖包袱反转就行了，当然也许为了迎合市场和口味而为之，那恰恰就拉低了电影的水准。
故事算是一波三折，也有体制批判性，但是法庭辩论的台词感觉乱七八糟，缺乏专业度和逻辑性。
就可以让我给满分。
不知我们何时可以有这种自信。
这不如rrr叙事那么流畅，大陆观众看的是题材
影片中涉及到的这些主体和荒诞事件，或多或少的发生在如今这个世界的每个角落，变革还是革命？这是这部影片带给我们的思考，也是每一个国家和每个公民都应该思考的命题。
一边跪，一边哭。
标准的宝莱坞流水模式，开头我以为重看了旧片子，连配乐都如此类似。但正如高赞评论，至少人家还能拍电影含沙射影。
观影后，我仿佛已经看到一个庞然大物正在缓慢崛起了，当某些群体习惯性的圈地自娱、一叶障目的放眼世界时，只会尽可能的把别人的不足摆在明面上借以衬托自身的优越，自身的恶劣极尽所能的掩藏起来。反观印度已经开始明白书写满文明只能让现实变得更加野蛮这道理。民主制度和反思的力量并不会如极权般的统治那样即刻发挥效力，但是可以胜在悠久绵长。激素只能兴奋一时，后患却是无穷的。不出意外，此消彼长之间最多三十到三十五年，这个可怕的邻居必将取代“某…”成为世界第二大经济体。
从电影的角度来看，或许只是四星。但从立意角度而言，五星值得。它挑战了体制、政治、教育、女性、司法等，也是我们奇缺的。
【6.5-】看完回想这个故事一开始到底起始于什么主题，女性主义、社会movement 、法律与正义、后真相、种姓制度、政治阴谋…无数次剧情“反转”的背后也是主题的反转，大部分问题讨论到一半就被另一个问题所替代，两个半小时的篇幅仍然没有一点让人喘息的空间，导演似乎想把整个印度社会都放进影片中，放大每一个相关者的情感，但终究在一次次的抒情、闪回与反转中再而衰三而竭。就像片中法庭戏上的那句台词说的，问题太多，每十五分钟就要高血压一次，直到最后疲惫到无力关心人物与事件的结局。凭借剪辑与叙事诡计造就的人设反转又何尝不是一种后真相时代的叙事常态呢？最遗憾的其实是，这些我们一个都拍不了的主题他们都能拍，但大多都只浅尝辄止了。
印度电影这是有逐渐韩国化的趋势啊~ 如果单看前半部分可能就是个俗套的正义执行，但后半段先从程序正义角度出发，进而引发出背后的真相，期间还讨论了媒体、学校、社会在其中扮演的角色，而且金句迭出，让人看得是目不暇接~「The greatest weapon of a politician is emotions. It is madness! Their thoughts, intelligence, and decisions are toppled over by this madness! Once they are affected by that madness, they won't be just party workers. They will become devotees!」
神了，最近的一次望月，全程高能，无限反转
这么高分怎么打出来的？立意起的很高，探讨的点也很多，通过一起案件牵扯出来各种社会面的问题，从政府到司法到媒体到人民，自上而下自下而上，问题蛮多，也不光是印度社会的问题，应该说每个国家都有的问题。但是，揭露这些阴暗面可以，能不能不要把观众当傻子，你看看那个法官还有律师都说的是些什么业余话术？最起码的职业操守都没有？说的话连个老百姓都不如。可信度瞬间就减了大半。而且这片子啊，一直在各种自我感动，几分钟就来一组慢镜头加史诗配乐，根本不给你机会好好搞清楚整个事件的流程。人物也单薄的可怕，每一个人都是工具人，根本不能称之为人物，稍微能看的就是法庭上那段，但是也各种穿插一些非常业余的对话，所以常常出戏。后面反转也就那样吧，没有上升到什么印度电影就甩我们几条街了，至少这片子不行，完全不行。
能拍出这样的电影并且让其通过审核上映。我看到了他们的希望
虽然冗长又有许多逻辑硬伤，但反转写得还不错，就是最后两位主角的身份揭秘太快太乱，完全可以剪掉前边很多重复的慢镜头来充实这部分，可以看得出主创的爱国心，印度电影开始走出自己的道路了，恭喜
虽然法庭戏与最后反转再反转堪称完美，但狂打5星的豆友们肯定还有别的相同的原因。
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