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".
个人还蛮喜欢的!!故事设置很能打动我,让我想起之前看到过的一起真实案件记录提到被害的多名女性在知道自己无法逃脱以后都会尽量在现场藏自己的指甲,皮屑,头发为未来侦破提供证据,和这部片所表达的还挺异曲同工的
3.5/抛却了奇情，用情感作为叙事纽带，将一段夹杂着巧合、意外与悲伤的故事，镶刻进充满创伤的历史背景当中，从母亲与孩子的连结，至生与死的跨越，阿莫多瓦一如既往的温柔。
继承母亲通灵能力的兄妹靠这个天赋翻盘的故事，鬼帮助人来对付人的设定算罕见的，值得四星。
虽然电影中两条线的结合与阿莫多瓦之前的作品比显得有些生硬了，但仍然能看到许多天才的创作力的彰显，摄影师是留住记忆的职业，所以女主角之后执着地要揭开乱葬岗的真相，让记忆圆满，而在残酷的历史之外，她也要面多来自现实的情感的危机，平行的母亲不仅仅指的是现实中两个阴差阳错分离又重聚的母亲，更是逝去的母亲和母亲的母亲，阿莫多瓦在电影中刻画的主人公有许多他前作的影子，在自由之中抗拒着时间对记忆的劫持，她们要努力地找到真相，然后勇敢地直面真相，年轻一代已经逐渐忘记了这些，但当抢救记忆的工程终于展开时，我们也接近了阿莫多瓦创作中一以贯之的主题，那就是面对命运的玩笑和摧残，逃离远不是解决的方法，超越痛苦才是我们应该做的，和往事释怀的前提并不是赎罪，而是逼近欲望的深渊时，看到恐惧又不被恐惧吞噬的坚强
#NYFF59#据Penelope说早在《All About My Mother》的宣传时期阿尔莫多瓦就跟她讲过整个故事的构思了，这么多年了还能把当初的idea拍出来也是很厉害。用女主想要挖掘在内战时被处决的曾祖父的坟墓引出母亲与下一代传承的点子蛮有意思的，孩子认亲就跟发掘坟墓一样是对历史的追寻和closure，内核是一脉相承的。而女主与另一位母亲Ana的故事又是特别的阿尔莫多瓦，感情浓烈，让人想到了Julieta。Penelope的表现很不错啊，奥提有望。
我十分想和Penelope学做西班牙土豆饼
就这样，一个小故事在这个精巧的万花筒中折射反射，散发着多姿多彩的迷人思绪。
主题之间融合确实应该更自然一些，整部电影的基调在我看来应该是对真相和还原与追求，而人类的情感正是带领人类寻求真相的指引，无论是小小的家庭之中的波折还是影响了几代人的历史事件，真相不会被永恒掩埋，佩内洛普的表演很厉害，奉献了一个比起《回归》更内敛却同样坚强的母亲形象
说明如果一个小男孩被绑架，如果没有能与鬼魂沟通的能力以及一个通灵的妹妹的话，必死无疑。
运用一段超长的母性主题叙事圆上了一个宏大的历史观，母亲作为叙事主体，可以被众多象征性事物替代，譬如国家、土地、所依恋的记忆。其实作为阿莫多瓦，这部作品每个叙事的节点其实都不意外，但相对来说，有些事物的表达似乎并不清楚，将孩子还给亲生母亲而继续忙于寻找记忆的项目，是说明一代人的事要一代代的解决吗？还是说我们宥于现存记忆而忘却共同伤痕是一种不尽善意的选择呢？两条线索平行但交错却显得头重脚轻，适当将更多共同伤痕记忆融入私人情感之中也许是一种更好的选择，或者说ane本身可以成为一个共同伤痕的隐藏承受者，被动接受并且理解历史的做法也许会更加动人。平行的不仅是共同母亲的身份，也平行了历史之间存在的异同，母亲的身份，同样也代表了另一层时空的我们。（最后一段掘尸的视听表达太完美了，共同伤痕，共同经历很动人的
除了颜色之外都很不阿莫多瓦，人类学那条线太僵硬了。但佩内洛普克鲁兹是什么神女喔，很难不想抱着她狂亲，作为母亲，也作为情人。
75/100 有不少过于机械的情节，但Janis商品摄影师的身份及其产生的引导比较有趣，同样是通过照片图像进行考古，奢侈品或模特广告图似乎是瞬时的，但持摄影机的人在某个瞬间总会被唤起一种意识，即对历史和记忆的求真：且大家对历史是既知的，要做的只不过是去承认既定的历史，而重点不在挖掘，毕竟每个人都知道冲突曾经的存在，西班牙祖国只不过是那些不同的母亲而已。
上了预告片的当了，正片就最后部分还算挺有意思的，其余真的昏昏欲睡。这年头逃生的前提是得通灵体质，得借助前面死难者自己探索的结果积累起来才能打败绑架者，否则逃生失败。finney和robin友谊好绝，bruce和finney如果搭档棒球队也很绝。
把孩子交还给生母，或许呼应着对于历史的重新体认。但无论如何表达，结尾还是突兀了些。
“男人永远不放弃他的朋友”，最后反杀非常带劲儿
阿尔莫多瓦大概是到了想怎么拍就怎么拍的阶段了吧，片子的内容太杂了，有堆砌的感觉。他的故事和弗朗哥时期相应的点正是以母亲为焦点的生生死死，借助如今的故事来讲述特定年代的女性史，平行母亲也就是这个意思了。包括孩子抱错了这条主要线索，也是影射Franquismo时期对Republicana的产妇们的真实行为。如果聚焦在这里让二者更为契合，那绝对是个很牛逼的片子。但是在故事的讲述中加入了太多的元素冲散了历史这一点（通过结尾那句话我猜测导演也是想在这里多着墨的）。简单来说，导演一如既往的着眼于女性情绪，然而又想碰沉重的历史话题，结果就是导致片子很断裂。
命运抽你脸时，你得用力抽回去，文艺作品都这样，现实是，躺平吧。伊桑霍克好肥
色彩还是那么炽烈，但是故事陈述的有点狗血，也没有以往的戏剧性。算是看过的导演的冲击力最平和的一部片子了。女主还是那么一如既往的美丽。最后半小时我震惊了，前半段的混乱很大程度上是女配接不住女主的戏，导致冲突和情感渲染不够充分，后半部分的历史确实让人大跌眼镜了。导演这次野心好大，猎奇的同时，还出土了历史，主题一下子就升华了。能把狗血剧情拍的这么有深度，不愧是你。这部电影，从三星改到四星，四星改到五星，越回味越觉得震撼。瑕不掩瑜。
现在流行反派角色0 back story是吧…
对自己事业的证明与渴望，力克身份之下的挑战与难题，还有在过去与现在之间的追问与找寻；凡此种种，从一而终地出现在每个角色的历程中。尽管缺席的男性角色、明亮的色彩还有由意外与偶然堆砌的悲喜生活似曾相识，却又蕴藏不断随着时境更新的宣言- -最后的画面与语录震撼并且充满观点，只是前面肥皂剧情来托陈交代的过渡显得没有那么平顺。比起这里的Penélope，私以为《主竞赛》潇洒大佬的完成更加有趣与纯熟；但也很欣喜这位女演员能够在如此特殊艰难的年份，依然持续地输出两个出色、印象深刻的表演。
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