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".
北有柔情史，南有爱情神话，绝妙的文本，精彩的调度，演员到位，角色设计有对比而自然，格局超越华语电影太多太多，让我们触摸到了生活。
我猜一定很多人会给低分，我是真喜欢这种电影，看起来很轻松， 已经不会考虑剧情和演技的问题，因为这就是生活，最后还自己吐槽自己！
可能我期待太高了，也可能徐峥老师的卖相实在太差了，也可能关键场面的火候总是差了那么一点点，四星打不下手去啊
有点离谱了，这都能吹得起来？难道我看的是另一部片吗… 这不就是一档优秀的国产电视剧吗？它投放的终端真应该是荧屏(电视)，而不是银幕(影院)…
平安夜包场看别提有多畅快了
2021年我的华语电影前三
实在是太有意思了，又好笑又感动，如果能活成倪虹洁那么畅快精彩就好了。吃饭时三个牙尖女人在一起也挺有意思，各自都很尖酸但是最后却很和谐。所以牙尖只能跟牙尖一起玩，换了我我就受不了。
唉，中年男人的困顿看得自己难受。爱情确实没有神话，友情一定有。配乐太考究了，没有想到之前打了个低🌟的八仙饭店，在电影里插入这么好听。
强烈推荐你去电影院看这部电影
22年年度最佳预定。私心推荐大家都去康。
自信又轻巧，锐利又宽阔，处处埋梗又不破梗，像是给文艺中年人的一封情书，伍迪艾伦in a shanghai way。
有点离谱了，这都能吹得起来？难道我看的是另一部片吗… 这不就是一档优秀的国产电视剧吗？它投放的终端真应该是荧屏(电视)，而不是银幕(影院)…
瞎起灵啊 瞎起灵! ! !
演员盘子搭得太好了，气氛非常小资，对话非常伍迪艾伦，观影过程妙不可言。这种叨逼叨的沪上中年爱情我愿意再看一百集。
突然就想起十多年前，细伢子们聚在我家一起看《2001太空漫游》，有人睡得很香。
被购票网站骗了，标的都是国语版，其实几乎完全都是沪语版本，但也真的只有听得懂上海闲话的人才能明白这部电影的妙处。全片充满了上海人才有的机智、幽默、得体、品味、腔调、包容、通达，也有看透人生以后的悲悯，马伊琍、倪虹洁、吴越三个女人当然也演得很好，但演得最好的还是徐峥，把一个上海闲人的劲儿呈现得很放松很呼之欲出。灵额！
没有跌宕起伏，但茶米油盐十足，尽显上海烟火气，还能不失修罗场。唇枪舌剑之间，抖尽有趣的机灵。咖啡馆、老房子、进口代购店、有调性的邻居、上海弄堂、单车，文艺中年，种种讲究，种种端着，自娱自乐，自成生活，大抵如斯。PS：离开影院后，默默地取消了费里尼版《爱情神话》的想看。毕竟，讲“俗”，我大概跟他们一样吧。
梗还是不少的，但是作为一个纯北方人我确实没get到在讲啥
2021年的最后一部电影，非常适合在上海的跨年夜看的一部非常上海的电影，好笑又好看，如果熟悉上海一定能get到，如果能听懂上海话就能get到更多乐趣，而且这部电影还很女性视角。非常喜欢鞋匠这个角色，彷佛扫地僧般的存在。还有，这个《爱情神话》居然真的是费里尼的《爱情神话》！第一次看到这个片名就想到了费费，最后大家一起看这部电影的反应也是很真实了哈哈哈哈…… 我爱费费！2021.12.31 @静安 百美汇
陪爹妈看的，希望爹认清自己（划掉）。也不是看得不舒服，但它的底色摆在这里：彻底背离真实的文本，完成的、完全的、完满的虚浮。没有真实的爱情（及其困境）、神话（及其真实）和死。一部彻底的喜剧，于是有足够的观看理由，因为我们想（？）生活在其中。但确实完成度挺高的，以至于我们觉得老乌的最后和他和索菲亚·劳伦故事一样是无所谓真假的——可是，如果是这样，那么白老师为什么要哭呢？
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