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".
观看过程五味成杂。女性版“海边的曼彻斯特”，女主演技爆棚，光是眼神就能体会出那种有苦不能说，有苦不想说，有苦说不出的无奈。
三星半吧。演技一下子抓住人心，让你跟着她一起悲伤克制愤怒。虽说剧情上不是那么完整，妹妹部分有些缺失，但是好像这就是主角角度的人生片段~
剧本很好，里面的人物塑造很丰满。整个故事层层递进，叙事中带点悬疑。桑婆的演技炉火纯青，眼神中有沧桑与隐忍，坚定与不疑，值得二封。
桑德拉布洛克的演技的确到位，可惜全片铺垫太多，节奏有些平，最后的结局其实也能猜到，总体还算完整，值得推荐！
很喜欢主演，几乎撑起了整部电影。小女孩的部分太虐心了。
成年人替未成年人顶罪，这次美国白左可算是左出了新高度
桑德拉这真的是向影后冲的啊，演技太到位了，无依之地可以，为什么这个不可以！想到之前燕外之意的一集，原谅的成本是多少呢？愿意原谅的人永远才是最勇敢的。而犯罪呢，如果社会拒绝接纳，那为什么不一开始设下死刑，监狱的意义又在哪里呢？有时间再翻翻福柯
桑婶被高票评选的片子其实每次我都不太喜欢，这次高分纯粹是因为她真的演得好。我以为是大团圆的he，结果每一分钟都比上一分钟让我悲伤，也不知道为什么新年第一天就要看这么个致郁的………单她真的可以再拿一次奖
之前看《生死时速》就没觉得桑德拉布洛克好看，不过这部电影让我觉得她的演技确实进步很多了，赞一个！看到老外做木工活特想笑，一路全靠铆钉，就是打满了也木有咱的榫卯结石！😜😜😜
不愧是奥斯卡和金球双料影后，最后眼里似泪非泪的那种特别复杂的大特写把我看流泪了，就是布洛克一个大女主撑起了并不讨巧的改编剧本，明显就是冲着颁奖季的最佳女主挑的片子，全程压抑和内敛的演绎肯定能让她再提一个奥斯卡最佳女主吧。德国女导演的第二部长篇显然不如第一部惊艳了。
基本上是个大女主电影，桑德拉布洛克也没让人失望，印象里第一次看她演那么苦情的角色，细节表情把握得很好，小金人还真有戏。
导演相当克制，一部不错的表演佳作，借着看上去很实，很真的社会事件。如果给韩国导演拍，一定反转一次又一次的复仇电影。导演并没有让剧情朝着观众的设想让任何一个人去挂号。着力表现女一号内心的挣扎和生活的不易。
旧的怨恨难以消解，新的仇恨因此衍生，失去亲人的他选择夺取她亲人的性命来报仇雪恨……谅解两个字看似简单，但要做到却时常并非易事
牛啊桑婆牛啊！！这不得奖说不过去了吧！想念西雅图😢/不可饶恕的是做出了错误选择的自己
剧作特别的讨巧，现实时空的三个家庭配桑德拉布洛克一个人。刑满释放的女主不断和自己的过去还有现实中的三个家庭产生冲突，牵出一条更生人在社会上的艰难线给女主做背景。绝对的大女主戏，桑德拉布洛克靠粗粝的表情把人物吃的死死的。人立住了，电影也立住了，绝对是靠演技撑出的一部电影。桑德拉布洛克应该能拿到这届奥斯卡最佳女主的提名，太会挑剧本了。
刚开始是英剧的慢节奏，最后半小时才拉上正轨，显得矛盾和冲突间夹杂了细腻。反转之处其实可以处理更好一些。
Sandra Bullock的演技真的牛，可惜结局有点掉下来了
故事不算复杂，女主演的很好
女主演的太好了，那张脸摆在那就特别有故事，可以无限悲伤。但是感觉这个电影镜头很差，特别像劣质美剧🤣
Sandra 无懈可击的表现，把人与人的情感发挥到极致，感人至深却不催人泪下，不过度煽情，理性的结局让你沉默不语。09年剧集改编的：https://movie.douban.com/subject/3286084/。
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