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".
层次和节奏都很不错，法国人的幽默总是不经意的冷着来，无需捧腹却很欢乐
好久没有看到这么优秀的喜剧片了，尤其是配合着动物世界的部分
创意不错，结尾略仓促，喜剧桥段还可以，废戏有点多！
令人惊喜的大手笔的改动！叙述方式变成了禁闭岛+穆赫兰道，精神内核则成了彻头彻尾的悲剧。这时候才意识到茨先生温柔善良到给遗作都留了一线光明的尾巴，创造出救世主般的外力（在现实中是大夫帮助男主逃出酒店，在幻境中是“我”拉男主回归理智）给了死局一种理想化的破解方式——保持了理智的同时“赢”了“棋局”。而电影版则是牢牢砌死永无出口的铁屋子，自我的维系与斗争的胜利只能二选一——非精神摧毁而不能赢。船上斗棋获胜是翻转整个设定的神来之笔，试问谁在读小说时没有幻想过博士大获全胜的爽文呢？图穷匕见之时才知道绝无爽文，只余绝望。果然是冷酷的编剧才能有立意极高的改编，如果戛然而止在灿烂阳光中就神作了。（小细节：警察局长认输后翻开棋谱，镜头给到一位大师，他的名字正是男主在船上的化名；而男主离开酒店时签的也是范列文）
法国电影的奇特之处是能把所有题材拍成喜剧。最可笑的是这部电影没有在国内被禁，哈哈，也许真的禁了的话所有人就都知道它为什么被禁了吧，李佳琪的蛋糕笑话是最近听到的最好笑的笑话。
法国导演拍的恐怖片，一点也不恐怖呢，还挺幽默挺sunshine的。
越看越像闹剧可又畏手畏脚了，
老板再给我来十片火腿砍煎炖煮，墩子要黄秋生，投喂对立人类集体送服。
虽然不如麦子叔的绿屠夫，但也算极尽讽刺了。素食，真主，黑人，女性基本黑了个遍。保持政治不正确才是人间乐趣。
像数次出现的《奥德赛》的词句，海上历险与倒叙。被强调的元素都与梦魇相连，房间壁纸的船与海，钨丝灯，书中的人物像，和象棋。下赢这盘棋，从米尔科手中、也从大都会酒店前台拿回手表。对纳粹有用的一个奥地利犹太人，非神志丧失而不能赢，时代死局。耀眼阳光只是幻觉。
很好看，跟动物世界联动太有趣了，而且最后温妮点题，既说明他们被捕是因为温妮的心脏起搏器，还说明他们一直对温妮心存愧疚
影院看的，奥地利腔太浓，没听懂... 几个做为隐喻重复出现的意象也没弄懂（钟表，电灯泡，酒，等等）。不过两条线交错拍摄的手法，音乐和镜头共同对心理和幻觉的表现，都是很不错的。
三星半，吐槽有趣精准且底色荒谬，洗掉了那种常见的高傲感，超五星的题设
【20220527】法国人真敢拍，（极端）素食主义者跟一切狂热分子都让人讨厌，无论他们有多么政治正确----不过他们毕竟是草食性动物，肉质鲜美可以补偿我们这些杂食动物收到的惊扰。
遗憾是：Winnie，怎么我们就没发现心脏起搏器呢？
好疲软，感觉像Netflix编剧开会随便头脑风暴了几个词搞出来的剧本，为啥这都能上7分……
之前看过，补标
虽然似懂非懂，但主角的演技真的太好了很震撼
7分，前半程很无聊，以为就是平铺直叙最终平安出国、小富即安，不想是我俗气，结局猝不及防，有一种悲怆感，不愧是大师之作。
哪家的字幕组呀，可太皮了，看到“黄秋生”真的要笑死，给电影添多几分幽默风趣。法国恐怖片的极端一直都是可以的，面对极端素食者，当然是要用魔法去打败魔法。中间用动物世界的镜头类比现实狩猎“伊朗猪”的剪辑也是有趣得不行，比起美食纪录片《新鲜》好多了。没有装高雅的“吃人”题材，偶尔粗暴点不正经也蛮有意思的，可惜烂尾了，最后的伏法拍得像是咱大陆电影为了过审一样。不过整体也算是近期恐怖片最近。
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