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".
3.5/5 虽然不喜欢本片将解剖粘腻的器官称为艺术的表达，将手术视为新型性爱的概念，将内部器官的形态作为“内在美”的评判对象，但看完还是忍不住想说“这是一部很酷的电影”。黑夜里二人交谈时背部反射着黄光——亦正亦邪，为了“使人类获得幸福”这一使命而“奋斗”的人，真的是在前进而不是在开倒车吗？
过分深奥而没有看懂 多看几次再回来吧 V最后一个scene实在是很强 超纲级表演
高概念的艺术呈现，蕴含了太多的隐喻，也可以有很多种解读。关于进化，关于创作，关于欲望… 柯南伯格真的很会玩~ Viggo和Lea的表现力绝了。
除了看不懂，还让人很不舒服。密集恐惧症的那种不舒服，对自己身体里是否有个不正确器官的不舒服。
柯南伯格的人体切割恶趣味，和传统的柯氏音乐，可故事力度已不如以往。有些导演可以称之为老而弥坚，但显然柯南伯格可算不上，只有自己的恶趣味。当然，点滴处，柯南伯格的审美，服饰设计还是在线的。
难以想象，柯南伯格居然拍出了如此无聊的作品。
疼痛与欢愉的两面，行为艺术之“掏心掏肺给你看”，看完感觉脑子被解剖了一遍…
相当超前的概念，身体和意识到底谁是主宰，科技的进步是否会带来人体自身的进化，人类未来到底会走向何种形态。不愧是柯南伯格的拿手好戏，把身体恐惧做得甚至在某种意义上来说非常吸引人。台词里充斥着文化研究的各种术语和概念，甚至感觉自己在看国外的专业教科书。还有一个让人难以忘怀的细节，但闻其声不见其面的苍蝇。
Porn is also a kind of art.
很古典的美 其实不管看不看得懂 这样一群养眼的演员在大师细腻的镜头下晃悠说台词都是很唯美的 可惜看到最后又幻灭了 惊叹竟然这么直给 就差把瑞典环保女孩拉出来唱一首片尾曲了…
越来越不喜欢这种概念片，完全放弃了故事和叙事么？
柯南伯格创造了一个具有全新概念的世界，身体由人类掌控，器官成为艺术，血腥艺术，手术即是性交，大量全新的概念涌入倒是创造了不小的观影压力，但是不得不说全程看下来竟然觉得蛮有意思的。斯图尔特和维果那段对话看得我真难受啊，一个口里卡着痰，一个说话喘大气…（借用柯南伯格那时对《潘神的迷宫》的吉尔莫德尔托罗说的话：“拍的很棒，但是金棕榈就别想了”）
蛤……蛤……蛤，还是那样吧，我永远都get不到柯南伯格。
柯南伯格自己可能没接受，没想清怎么讲，对现实人类极限也欠缺了解。他自觉移挪来一些大胆概念，却保守地使用大段对白来解释。可惜，这剥夺了人物和表演的空间，让视听也不够极致。并不是它没有满足我，或者不想满足我，而是它像男主的老泪一样，让我无所适从。
thanks, but no thanks
很古典的美 其实不管看不看得懂 这样一群养眼的演员在大师细腻的镜头下晃悠说台词都是很唯美的 可惜看到最后又幻灭了 惊叹竟然这么直给 就差把瑞典环保女孩拉出来唱一首片尾曲了…
这样的艺术何尝不是另外一种会被批判的艺术，也许这种艺术对现在的人类来说还为时尚早吧。这样的片子看一遍都是痛苦和煎熬，完全没兴趣去细细品味。
纯属来恶心我…我认了
【4.5+】柯南伯格最佳。从一个世界链接向另一个世界，外向的陌异和内化的身体装置得到了惊人的平衡和丰富，不再（如20世纪时）只拘泥于概念化的建构，其在片中被观看后共享，乃至传递向影片的观看者。而每个全新却无意义的组织器官，如块块碎片建筑最后那雄壮而诗意的尾音，我们终于体悟到这是一场混沌的盛宴。
未来人类生理追随技术的进步，不再感受疼痛。快感的阈值不断攀升，需要靠手术才能满足。女一女二被男主吸引，不像是艺术上的共鸣，更像慕––残。
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