Vampire Flicks: Martin (1977)

Long before I ever saw any of them, I knew George Romero was the guy behind Night of the Living Dead and its, at the time, two sequels. I also knew of both Creepshow and Monkey Shines, as I'd seen their VHS boxes at our local video rental store, but I didn't learn he was their director until many years later. But I'd never heard of the majority of his other movies until after I first got into his Living Dead series, thanks in large part to the bonus features on their DVDs. Specifically, it was in the features for Anchor Bay's big, four-disc set of Dawn of the Dead, which included the documentaries The Dead Will Walk and Document of the Dead, that I learned of the films he made in between Night and Dawn, including Martin. In fact, Document of the Dead showed off quite a bit of it, including much of its opening on the train, as the narrator described Romero's filmmaking technique; the scene where Martin creeps through the house, as black-and-white memories and visions flash through his mind, before he bursts in on the couple as they're about to have sex, which was intermixed with an interview with John Amplas; and the aftermath of that scene, as the documentary went into Romero's approach to editing. It was during that middle section where I first heard that Martin was, "Romero's modern vampire story," though it definitely didn't look like any vampire movie I'd ever seen before, with this young, geeky-looking, string-bean of a guy in black attacking people by injecting them with narcotics. Over time, as I learned more about Romero's career and his non-Living Dead movies, I picked up on how it's unclear whether the title character actually is a vampire or is mentally disturbed and just thinks he is. Either way, it definitely sounded like an interesting take on the subject, but as much as I may have wanted to see it, that wouldn't happen until I found a copy of Second Sight's Blu-Ray at OrbitDVD in Asheville, North Carolina, in 2023. 

I've now watched Martin three times in total, and while it's not among my favorites of Romero's filmography, like his original Living Dead trilogy, I can easily call it the best of the spate of movies he made between Night and Dawn (granted, at this point, I haven't seen There's Always Vanilla, but given how Romero himself always called that a piece of crap, I can safely assume this is much better), as well as something I would much rather watch over Bruiser. It's also further proof that he was a very sensitive and thoughtful filmmaker and, much like Wes Craven, was capable of being more than just a horror director. While there is a fair amount of the blood and violence, not to mention social commentary, you associate with Romero's movies, as well as quite a bit of nudity, this is, for the most part, a leisurely-paced, melancholic character study about a troubled young man who, because of his unfortunate background, has been treated like a monster his whole life until he's actually become one, regardless of whether or not he actually is a vampire. I also like the idea that it's a story about how people use monsters as a means of cutting away, personifying, and even justifying the evil found within themselves. That's not to say it's not without faults, as it is very rough around the edges and extremely low budget, the acting isn't always the greatest, and I'm not big on the rapid, mosaic editing Romero tended to employ during this period, but it is still a very unique and interesting way of exploring this subject matter. (Some may argue that, because of Martin's own ambiguous nature, I'm cheating by including it as part of this month's slate of reviews, but I feel it more than counts due to how much it's steeped in traditional vampire lore and myths.)

During a train journey from Indianapolis to New York, Martin Mathias, a young man in his 20's, breaks into a car occupied by a young woman who caught his eye while he was boarding. He sedates her with a syringe filled with narcotics, assuring her that she won't feel a thing. After she's asleep, he undresses and rapes her, then slashes her wrist with a razor blade in order to drink her blood. He cleans up both himself and the crime scene, and disembarks when the train stops at Pittsburgh. There, he's met by his elderly cousin, Tata Cuda, and the two of them take another train to the dying industrial town of Braddock. Taking him to his house, Cuda refers to Martin as "Nosferatu," a vampire, and promises to save his soul, before he destroys him. He shows Martin to his room, threatening to destroy him without salvation if he kills anybody in the neighborhood, as well as orders him not to speak with his granddaughter, Christina, who lives with him. All the while, Martin insists that there is nothing supernatural about him. He soon meets Christina, whom he's very awkward around, but the two of them slowly but surely strike up a friendship. That evening, at dinner, he also meets Christina's boyfriend, Arthur, whom she has a very stormy relationship with. And while acting as a delivery boy for Cuda's market, he meets Abby Santini, a depressed young housewife with an unfaithful husband, who uses Martin as someone to confide in. Christina doesn't believe her grandfather's claims that Martin is a vampire, feeling it's nothing but poisonous superstition brought over from the Old World. Cuda, however, insists it is true, and that he has taken Martin in because both of his parents are now dead. Martin himself doesn't deny the claims, and turns down Christina's offer to get him a doctor who could help him. Soon, his bloodlust becomes impossible to ignore, and he begins searching for victims, while often calling in to a radio show to talk with the DJ about his urges, as well as to dispel the myths about vampires. With Cuda's constant oppression and accusations, emotional torment from what are either memories or fantasies of a past victim, and the overall soul-sucking nature of the area, Martin quickly finds himself heading towards complete self-destruction.

When put into context, Martin, despite technically still being part of that unsuccessful ten-year gap he found himself in between Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, actually kind of marks the second phase of George Romero's career. For one, not counting the long shelved Amusement Park, it was the first movie he made following The Crazies, released three years prior, and which sorts of caps that period where he was floundering. Like those other post-Night movies, Martin didn't get good distribution during its initial release, but what I feel differentiates it is that Romero seemed to have found his footing and made it with more confidence and clearer intent (he sometimes said it was his personal favorite), whereas those others came off as rather shaky, for one reason or another. Significantly, it also marks the first time he worked with a number of the people who would make up his core crew for many movies afterward: producer Richard Rubinstein (for better or worse), cinematographer Michael Gornick, makeup effects artist Tom Savini, and actor John Amplas, who would go on to appear in many of the following movies, usually in bit parts, and was also the casting director for Dawn of the Dead. Speaking of which, it was while making Martin that Romero got the inspiration for Dawn, and also when he first met Dario Argento, who would not only become his friend and be instrumental in making the latter happen, but, like that movie, would reedit Martin for the European market, giving it the new title of Wampyr.

The character of Martin Mathias himself is one of many ways in which this film subverts what you've come to expect from vampires due to popular culture. Instead of a suave, handsome, and mysterious gentlemen who seduces his victims before he feeds on their blood, we get the thin, quiet, unassuming, and decidedly unimposing form of John Amplas, Not only is he someone whom you wouldn't look at twice if you passed him on the street (save for maybe the unusual, awkward manner in which he walks), but you would definitely never peg him as seductive. In fact, instead of any kind of otherworldly hypnosis or charm, he injects his victims with narcotics to put them out before he feeds on them. Moreover, it's amazing that he hasn't already been caught by this point, as he often succeeds in claiming his victims in spite of himself, as he often fumbles, falls, and even gets thrown around by them. It's all that he can to subdue the first victim on the train until the drugs kick in, and when he later sneaks into the house of another intended victim, only to find her there with someone other than her husband, he has to quickly inject the latter and then hide elsewhere in the house to keep from getting beaten up, while also thwarting their attempts to call the hospital. And his attack on some homeless men near the end of the movie goes sideways in a very spectacular fashion.

Traditional vampire or not, one thing is clear about Martin from the movie's very opening: despite what an inept attack he is, he's an extremely unbalanced and disturbed guy, not to mention dangerous. After he boards the train and spots the one woman who's also boarding, he spends some time in his own car, before heading to the bathroom and getting to work, taking out his plastic bag filled with syringes and narcotics, and filling up one of the needles. Then, he breaks into the woman's car, jumps her when she gets out of the

shower, injects her, and, again, struggles to hold her down and keep her from escaping. The whole time, he actively tries to calm her, telling her not to scream and saying he just wants her to go to sleep, and when the drug starts to take effect, he tells her, "It's alright. I'm always very careful with needles. It won't hurt you... It won't hurt you. It's just to help you sleep." He has to restrain her as she gives one more burst of energy before she passes out, while he stresses that it's important she be unconscious, indicating that he 

doesn't want to cause pain or suffering. He proceeds to strip naked, undress her, and have sex with her, before slitting her wrist open with a razor blade and drinking her blood. He then cleans up both himself and the car, showing a meticulousness that comes from having done this many times. And once he arrives in Pittsburgh and starts living with Tata Cuda in Braddock, Martin attempts to keep from forming any bonds or becoming friendly with other people, mainly by avoiding talking with them at all. He initially doesn't speak with Christina, only doing so

with her for the first time at the dinner table, and, after meeting Abbie Santini, spends the entire afternoon not saying a word to her, except when she drops him off after she drives him back to town and he thanks her. He also has to deal with Cuda's oppressiveness, accusations, superstitions, and constant watching, as well as his dragging him to church on Sundays. But, despite Cuda's warnings about what will happen if he learns he's killed someone in town, Martin can't control his urges. However, his other victims end up not being who he originally intends or, in some cases, even the type he usually goes for.

Martin never denies being a vampire, and even tells Christina that, despite looking like someone in his 20's, he's actually 84 years old. What he does deny, is the supernatural aspect, or "magic," as he calls it. In fact, during one of his many flashbacks, he can be heard saying it's just an illness. The fact that Cuda holds onto the superstitions especially annoys him, as shortly after they arrive at the latter's house, Martin chases him into his room, which he's been forbidden to enter, and doesn't flinch at the garlic Cuda has

hanging on the door, the religious symbols that decorate the room itself, or the crucifix that Cuda uses to try to repel him. Exasperated, Martin grabs the garlic and takes a bite out of it, before grabbing and holding the crucifix, even putting it to his own face, repeatedly exclaiming, "You see?!", adding, "It isn't magic. Even I knew that. It isn't magic." More to the point, at the dinner table, he shows Christina a magic trick, then explains to her how it works, saying, 

"Things only seem to be magic. There is no real magic. There's no real magic ever." And late in the film, after he's been put through an intended exorcism, Martin runs out of the house and, when Cuda comes looking for him, appears to him at a playground, dressed and made up to look like the classic image of a vampire: pale skin, fangs, and a cape. Cuda, naturally, falls for this, attempting to, again, ward him off with a crucifix, and hits him with cane, but Martin then reveals it was all makeup and a costume, reiterating that there's nothing supernatural. 

While talking on the radio show, he attempts to debunk many of the vampire myths that have been popularized. When asked how often he gets these urges to feed on people's blood, he says it's not all the time, adding, "That's not like in the movies, either. I saw a movie once where it happened every night. Now, that's crazy. Those movies are crazy... It's all crazy." He's asked if he has any problems with the sunlight and he sincerely answers, "Well, the sun bothers my eyes sometimes, especially when it's about time, when I get shaky." Later, near the end of 

the movie, he says, "And that's another thing about those movies. Vampires always have ladies. Sometimes, lots of ladies. Well, that's wrong too! You don't need all that... I mean, if the magic part was real and you could make them do whatever you wanted to... Well, that would be different. In real life, in real life you can't get people to do what you want them to do."

Again, the question of whether or not Martin really is a vampire is left unanswered. The many visions he has, which are framed as memories of persecution and attempted exorcisms, as well as possibly his first victim, seem to evoke a much earlier time period, with the clothes, architecture, and vintage vehicles, as well as the use of the black and white, and tropes such as candelabras, moody fog, and even a torch-wielding mob. However, whether these are actual memories or just fantasies he dreamed up, possibly from having

seen one too many horror movies, is never made clear. For me personally, I think Martin is just a very deluded guy who, because he's been told his whole life that he's a vampire, has come to believe it. He may not believe in the supernatural aspects, other than his being much older than he seems, but he does believe he needs to feed on human blood now and then, an urge that has developed as part of his mental issues. In fact, it's become akin to an addiction, with Martin describing how he gets shaky when it's time 

for him to kill, akin to a drug addict who's about to go into withdrawals. He's just a serial killer, and a methodical one, too, given how he always cleans up any evidence of presence and finds ways to gain access to his victims, such as by staking out a woman's house and, when he sees that her husband is leaving on a business trip, buys and programs a walkie-talkie to open their garage door. But, at the same time, he's not a sadist. He really doesn't wish to inflict harm or cause suffering, which is why he always drugs his victims. The murders are just a 

means to an end, to get the blood he craves. He even spares the one woman, instead killing the man she was having an affair with and drinking his blood instead. However, he still proves to be a sexual deviant when he rapes her while she's unconscious, as he often does. He admits on the radio show that he's never had a genuine sexual encounter, saying, "I've been much too shy to ever do the sexy stuff. I mean, do it with someone who was awake." He then adds, "Someday, maybe I'll get to do it, awake, without the blood part. Just do it with somebody. Then be together and talk all night."

Obviously, Martin is afraid of and yet, at the same time, desperate for human connection, given how he initially tries to avoid talking with Christina but then strikes up a friendship with her, and pours his heart out to the radio DJ, as he so badly needs to tell somebody. Most significantly, he catches the eye of Abbie Santini, who similarly pours her heart out to him, complaining about her philandering husband. She also becomes infatuated with him and tries to arrange for him to come around her house more often 

to do odd jobs. When she finally makes a pass at him while he's repairing her door, he becomes frightened and runs off, knowing what she wants. He later does have sex with her, beginning an affair that lessens his desire for blood, even though there are a lot of people who are mean to him whom he'd love to kill and feed on. He tells the DJ that he's beginning to feel "shaky," as if, again, he's starting to go through withdrawals, but adds, "But when I try to find somebody to do it to, I can't decide. It's like... none of the ladies look 

pretty! I don't know. I used to be able to decide fast. Used to be able to find somebody really fast. None of the ladies look pretty, or somethin'. Maybe it's because I'm doin' the sexy stuff without the blood now, doin' it with an awake person. I don't know." He frets that it's going to cause him to make a mistake and, sure enough, when he finally breaks and kills a pair of homeless men, it goes up belly-up big time. Not only does he attack them in a clumsy manner, by bashing them in the head with a metal pipe, but he 

also nearly gets caught by the police, runs into some drug dealers while fleeing them, and gets caught up in a shootout between them. Things truly start to fall apart for Martin after Christina leaves and, despite her promise, never writes to him, just as he figured. And then, right at the end, he goes to see Abbie, only to find that she killed herself. Telling the DJ about the latter, he admits, "In a way, I'm glad it's all over. I shouldn't have friends, not even for the sexy stuff." This is an attitude he'd begun feeling and expressing to the DJ beforehand, and in his last conversation with him, he says he feels things are getting easier. Little does Martin know that it really is "all over."

While Martin himself never denies being a vampire, Tata Cuda (Lincoln Maazel) is the one who truly perpetuates the idea that he is, as per the traditions and superstitions of the old country. He's already fairly hostile towards Martin when he picks him up in Pittsburgh, but once they arrive in his home in Braddock, he refers to him as Nosferatu, telling him, "First I will save your soul, then I will destroy you." He shows Martin to his room and tells him that, while he may come and go as he pleases, if he kills one person in the area, he will be destroyed without salvation. Cuda goes on to tell him that he is not permitted to enter his room or Christina's, or to speak with her, and that he will start working at his store. Even though Martin shows no ill effects from all of the traditional vampire deterrents around the house, including a crucifix, nothing will convince Cuda that he's isn't one. When Christina confronts him about it, he dismisses every point she brings up: "Your father was not from our part of the world. Your mother knew. She believed... Look in the books, Christina. We have the books of the family... He is Nosferatu. He was born to Helena Bugliarese and Rudy Matthias, in the old country, in 1892... There have been nine such accursed in the family. There are three still alive. Martin is one." He goes on to describe how the family elder, Aldo Maldaross, still living in the old country, is the one who decides who will take the vampire into their home, saying, "We obey, first, for the family shame, and again, because, to defy the evil ones is to bring a curse upon oneself. I will not shame the family. But the devil, the devil can take my soul. I would have destroyed the children the moment they showed the signs..." He then tells Christina directly, "People cannot come to other people's beliefs. It's hard for you, I know. It's hard for anyone young. Do you believe that God's whole world runs by the laws of the few sciences we have been able to discover? Oh, no, Christina. There is more. But people are satisfied. They know so much. They think they know all. And that makes it easy for Nosferatu. That makes it easy for all the devils."

Throughout Martin's stay, Cuda continues to impose the old ways and superstitions on him, first by attaching bells to his room's door so he knows when he's going out, and forcing him to accompany him and Christina to church. In fact, when he sees that Martin isn't already up and dressed come Sunday morning, he's severely irritated. He roughly wakes him up and admonishes him, "You stay in my house. Will you embarrass me like this?! This is a Catholic family. I will not be seen in church without you. Get 

dressed!" Later, when they have Father Howard, a new, young priest, over for dinner, Cuda's old-fashioned beliefs and ways prove to be too much for him. Cuda flat-out says that Braddock is a town for old people, and they need a priest who thinks like them and believes in the old ways. He asks Howard if he believes in demons or possession, and when Howard laughs it off, saying, "I don't know what to believe about that," Cuda is aghast, exclaiming, "You don't know, Father Howard?! Ha, you see?! This is 

what I mean. This is not what an old person wants to hear from a priest... If you priests cannot save us from such things, who can, Father Howard?!" Howard proceeds to recommend an older priest named Father Zulemus, whom he says claims to have actually performed an exorcism. Cuda calls Zulemus up and, together, they attempt to exorcise Martin, only for him to bolt out of the house. When Cuda goes looking for him, he gets jumped by Martin in his vampire getup on the playground, and he absolutely

falls for it, even seeming to think it proves that he really is one. Even after his fanaticism drives Christina away, Cuda sticks to his guns and, in the end, makes good on his threat towards Martin when he hears about Abbie Santini's death (even though Martin wasn't directly responsible for it).

Romero's future wife, Christine Forrest, has a fairly substantial role as Christina, Tata Cuda's granddaughter. Since she doesn't believe in her family's old traditions and superstitions at all, she's not afraid of Martin and, despite Cuda telling her otherwise, talks with him. Even though he, initially, doesn't respond to her, she still interacts with him and treats him like a human being, asking if he'd like to have a phone installed in his room. She says she's having one installed for herself, something that she and Cuda argued about. She and Martin slowly develop something of a friendship, although she does recognize that he's very troubled. She and Cuda get into an argument about him, with Christina saying that these ancient and antiquated beliefs of the family are making both Cuda himself and Martin crazy. She also exclaims that the family's books, "Should be burned!", adding, "That's where you get your horrible ideas!" As for Martin and his own belief in his being a vampire, she says, "He's unbalanced. He's mad, and you and those books have driven him to it!" Frustrated with her inability to reason with Cuda, Christina vents about how, after having grown up hearing all about Nosferatu and the family curse, she's just sick of the whole thing. She talks with Martin, empathizing with what he's going through, and asking if he would like to get psychiatric treatment or, at the very least, go somewhere to get away from the family. Martin declines, saying he's already seen many doctors who couldn't help him, and that going to a hospital would be too hard for him. However, he does say he would like a telephone in his room, as per her earlier offer, which later enables him to call into the radio show. And she also eventually takes down the bells that Cuda put outside Martin's bedroom, again thinking they're ridiculous.

Christina is also just sick of her life in the dying town that is Braddock, as well as her boyfriend Arthur, whom she has a tense, stormy relationship with due to his lackadaisical and indifferent personality. Martin overhears an angry argument she has with Arthur over the phone, which suggests he may be cheating on her as well. The final straw for her comes when she hears that Cuda talked to Arthur about Martin while they were out at a bar, suggesting that insanity runs in the family and it may be best if Christina 

never marries, which prompted Arthur to stand her up for a date (which he's no stranger to, anyway). She angrily confronts Cuda, calling him a hypocrite and insane, and he slaps her a couple of times for her use of profanity. With that, she tells him that she's leaving with Arthur the following morning, adding, "But don't worry, we won't have any offspring. We won't even wind up together. Arthur's just my way out." Before she leaves, Cuda tells Christina that she's wrong but she just says, "Well, then, too bad for me." In her last interaction with Martin, she tells him, "If you need 

anything, you just call me or... I'll come. I'll send you the money." He glumly says that she'll forget about him, and when she insists she won't, he adds, "People always go away so they can forget where they were." Again, she says that she will write to him, but, according to Martin during one of his last calls to the radio show, he never did receive any letters. However, whether she actually did forget about Martin or Cuda simply hid the letters is never verified.

A clean-shaven Tom Savini (which is really weird to see) plays Arthur. He doesn't have that much screentime, but when he first shows up while Martin, Christina, and Cuda are having dinner, he seems nice enough. When Christina introduces him to Martin, Arthur is cordial and tries to make conversation, but when he gets into an argument with Cuda about his looking for work, Martin leaves the room. In the next scene, you overhear an argument between Christina and Arthur, as she wants to get out of the house for a while, but he just wants to stay and watch a ballgame. His excuse is that he promised Cuda he'd watch the game with him, that Cuda complains about how Arthur and Christina don't spend enough time at the house, much to her irritation. She argues that he doesn't want to spend time with her anymore and he exclaims, "We spend our lives in bed!" She says, "We do not," and the argument goes on from there, as she says she's sick of him and everybody else in Braddock, that they don't want to do anything but watch their lives pass them by. And again, there's a suggestion during the argument Martin overhears that Arthur may be cheating on her. Other than when he's seen spending time with them in church, Arthur's other most significant scene is when he and Cuda are out at a bar. He talks about how he has to get out of Braddock in order to find work as a mechanic, much to Cuda's irritation, who earlier insisted he could find work there if he wanted to (ignoring how the town is falling apart). Cuda also suggests that it'd be best if he doesn't marry or have children with Christina, suggesting that there's insanity in the family. Afterward, Christina leaves town with Arthur, admitting that their relationship likely won't work out but that they're both just trying to escape.

Outside of Christina, the most significant connection Martin makes is with Abbie Santini (Elayne Nadeau). He meets her while working as a delivery boy for Cuda, and when she answers the door for him, she immediately starts talking before he can say one word. She then offers to give him a lift back to Braddock, since she's heading that way, and he silently goes along with her. Along the way, she vents to Martin about her unfaithful husband, saying that she knows she should leave him. She tells Martin, "You remind me of an old cat I used to have... I had an old alley cat. He used to sit on the floor and stare up at me with those eyes. I really used to be able to talk to that old cat. And he'd just listen and listen until I got it all out of my system. Never said anything, either. Never talked back." When she drops him off and he gets out, he talks to her for the first time when he says, "Thank you," much to her surprise. She then asks if he does jobs like yard-work or handiwork, to which he nonchalantly nods. Other than when she's at church, the next time we see Abbie is when Martin is at her house, fixing her door. Getting a little tipsy while watching him, she walks up behind him and brushes his hair. He immediately jumps to his feet and she apologizes, saying he's, "So gentle. So nice," adding, "I only want to hold you." Martin gets skittish and runs off, but the next time he makes a delivery, he agrees to have sex with her. Afterward, he finds her on the couch with a bottle of liquor, crying. At first, he thinks it's something he did, or that she's worried about becoming pregnant, but Abbie assures him that it's nothing he did, and that she's unable to have children. On the latter issue, she asks, "Is that good for me, bad for me?", and when he says nothing, she adds, "No opinion? That's why you're so nice to have around, Martin. You don't have opinions." After Christina leaves, Martin and Abbie are seen out in a field together, the latter, still depressed, saying, "I wish you could shoot me up with drugs, take away a piece of my brain, or something." She then tells him, "Boy, do I wish what you have is catching," and he says, "Some people think it is catching. In the movies, it's catching." She says, "Give it to me. Please?", and they start making out. But, when Martin goes to see Abbie again near the end of the movie, he finds her dead in the bathtub, having slashed her wrists.

George Romero himself briefly appears as Father Howard, the new, younger priest whom Cuda butts heads with over his not engaging in the old ways. During his time at Cuda's house for dinner, Howard proves to be a rather affable, down to Earth guy, interested in talking about anything other than what Cuda has in mind. For instance, he mentions the really good wine they have at the dinner table, saying, "I don't suppose it's sacrilege to say the wine at St. Vincent's is putrid." Cuda asks Howard if he was sent to Braddock or came of his own volition, and he answers that he was sent to replace his predecessor, Father Carelli. Cuda dismissively says that Carelli asked to leave because, like everyone else, he feels Braddock is on its last legs, to which Howard tells him, "No, he has cancer. He's very near the end. In fact, I haven't heard, he may be gone." (Howard's tone and expression, however, all but scream that it's a lie.) As they're talking afterward, Howard doesn't pay Cuda much mind or take him seriously, especially when he starts talking about demonic possession. When Cuda becomes incensed over his dismissive attitude about the subject, he patronizes him by telling him about Father Zulemus and how old-fashioned he is, as well as that he claims to have performed an exorcism. He adds, "He went to see that film, The Exorcist? He said they did it all wrong! I don't suppose you saw that movie. I thought it was great." Little does Howard know that he inspires Cuda to call up Zulemus to try to exorcise Martin.

Around the middle of the movie, Martin goes into Pittsburgh and begins stalking a woman (Sara Venable) he first sees at a grocery store. He follows her home and, posing as a deaf person trying to earn money, knocks on her door to see if she lives alone. She turns out to be married, but while she's sympathetic towards him, her husband (producer Richard Rubinstein) is irritated upon seeing him and reluctantly gives him one coin. Later, when he leaves for a business trip, Martin manages to break into the 

house by using a walkie-talkie as a makeshift controller for the garage door. But when he bursts into the bedroom, he finds the woman with a man named Lewis, played by a porn actor named Roger Caine, under the pseudonym of Al Levitsky. This is where the scene becomes darkly funny, thanks to his and Venable's performances. Lewis initially thinks Martin is the woman's husband, while she, covering herself up, exclaims that she doesn't know him. Getting over his shock, Martin quickly injects Lewis and runs back out into the house. The three of them then fumble 

around all over the place, with Lewis and the woman arguing about calling for help, as she argues that she can't because he's not supposed to be there, while Lewis says he doesn't care. When he tells her to call the hospital, she whines and complains that she can't remember the number, and then, while Martin constantly interferes with the call using another phone in the house, the woman argues with Lewis, thinking he's on the phone as well. And despite being shameless enough to bang someone else's wife, Lewis does try to get back inside to help the woman after Martin locks him out. But even though he does get back in to help her when Martin has the woman cornered in the bedroom, he eventually passes out from the drug, and Martin is able to inoculate her as well. While he does kill Lewis and drink his blood, he leaves the woman alive, although he does rape her while she's passed out.

Even though he never appears onscreen, one last significant character is the DJ (voiced by cinematographer Michael Gornick) who hosts the radio show that Martin calls into. Referring to him as "the Count," the DJ is obviously patronizing as Martin pours his heart out, clearly thinking he's just insane. But, because he gets the show a lot attention, with people calling in, and also because he finds him to be really entertaining in how he describes his methods and mindset, and dispels popular vampire tropes (sometimes, they guy can just barely hold back his laughter), he lets him talk. During a break early on, he asks Martin where he can reach him and if he could come down to the station. Though Martin hangs up at that, he continues calling in, even after he catches on to how the DJ is mocking him at one point. When he talks about how he's getting shaky and desperate for a victim, the DJ gives out a mock warning to all his listeners, and tops it off with a goofy laugh. Near the end, when Martin is talking about how he shouldn't have friends, the DJ says, "Live for yourself! Whatever it takes, right? Get through the night, right, Count?" This is when Martin angrily asks if he's making fun of him and he answers, "No, I'm with you, Count, huh?! I mean, you're absolutely right. You're alright, my man!" He is nice enough not to laugh at Martin when he laments about Abbie's suicide, but starts chuckling again when he talks about how vampires don't need a bunch of women, like in the movies. And as the end credits roll following Martin's death, you hear both the DJ and a bunch of callers wondering what became of him.

I was originally going to say that Martin was George Romero's final movie shot on 16mm, and that Dawn of the Dead would mark his first on 35mm, but it turns out I was only half right. I used to think Night of the Living Dead was shot on 16mm, as were all of his movies up until Dawn, but now I remember that it was actually shot on 35mm but edited and distributed on 16mm. Still, Martin does mark an end for Romero, as it's the last movie of his that would have that gritty, ultra low budget visual style of his early films. Truth be told, when I first saw it, I found its visual aesthetic

to be a bit off-putting, which is how I feel about the way all of his movies made during this period look, with their desaturated color palettes and obvious low budget nature. However, having now seen one of the awful-looking, full screen prints that used to be the norm on home media, I now realize that, when you see the film in widescreen and HD, there is an appeal to how it looks. Not only does it enhance the feeling of urban decay that Romero was going for in the setting, with many shots of the town of Braddock having an undeniable handheld, documentary feel, but

it also works well for all of the shadows and nighttime scenes, as the blacks are very, very deep. And because he himself often dresses in black, it sometimes looks as though Martin's head and hands are floating around in midair. There are also plenty of noteworthy shots, with Romero able to really get in close on the actors because of the 16mm, and make certain sequences, like when Martin chases after Tata Cuda at the beginning, the attempted exorcism, and Martin scaring Cuda on the playground, come off as

strange and surreal, thanks to the camera angles. The most striking bit of visual style, however, comes in the black-and-white flashbacks, which look both beautiful and ghostly, as if they are from a completely different world, and thus, helps reinforce the question of whether they are actual memories or just fantasies of Martin's. And, because this is a horror movie, there are a number of instances of camerawork used to enhance suspense, like at the beginning, when Martin hides in the train car's corner, behind the 

bathroom door, as his intended victim comes out; when he's hiding in the housewife's garage as she looks around in the background; when he manages to lock Lewis outside; when he's standing in the hall outside the woman's bedroom; and an overhead shot that's used for when he corners her in her closet.

More off-putting to me personally than the film's look are some examples of the editing style that Romero himself employs. He edited his own movies all the way up to Creepshow, and it was during this period that he sometimes got a little too experimental for my tastes. While Martin is much easier to follow than something like Season of the Witch, I feel the editing sometimes gets a little too rapid. It never becomes overly kinetic like a lot of modern day movies, and I never lose track of what's going on, even during the 

scenes where Martin is struggling with a victim, fumbling around in an environment, or when it quickly cuts back and forth between the present and the flashbacks. But, that said, there are many instances of montages and mosaics, in sequences like when Martin is preparing his syringes, cleaning up the crime scenes, or just walking around the towns and neighborhoods, where you have shots that are often done in major close-up, and sometimes last for maybe a little over a second, if that. Maybe others don't have this problem, but that sometimes make it hard for me 

to mentally put the whole picture together. Other times, though, the editing is not only effective, but its suddenness creates instances of humor. An example is when Martin tells Abbie that he knows she wants to have sex with him, and as soon as he agrees to it, boom! You see them lying in bed, completely naked, holding onto each other, and experiencing the afterglow. A decisively unfunny but effective example of sudden editing is at the end, in how it unexpectedly becomes apparent that Cuda is about to 

stake Martin, with both him and the viewer barely having time to comprehend it before it happens. I will also say that some of the sound editing is interesting, like how you suddenly hear Martin talking to the DJ for the first time while he's cleaning up the scene at the one woman's home, before it's even been established that he's doing so or even who he's talking to, and I also like how we're hearing him talk about things that have already happened while we're watching them take place, such as him finding Abbie 

dead. The sound gets especially interesting during the flashbacks, with the young woman's echoing voice as she calls his name, and this sort of hissing sound you hear during some parts. But, on the other hand, when Martin is talking to the DJ, you can sometimes hear the playback of what they just said on the other end of the line, which can be off-putting. And, during the shootout near the end of the movie, when one of the drug dealers gets killed while in his car and crashes into one of the cops on the side of his squad car, the car horn is heard blaring through the rest of the scene until Martin runs out of the warehouse. I understand the implication, but that irritating noise is held a little too long for me.

Much of the film was actually shot in the town of Braddock, with many locals appearing as extras. It was Michael Gornick who suggested the location to Romero, as it was where his parents lived when they first arrived in America. Romero wanted a place that looked as though it was falling apart and he definitely found it. In stark contrast to the nearby big, bustling city of Pittsburgh, this place is basically a dump, with filthy and mostly empty streets, lots of trash in and around them, vehicles that look as though they died and were just left on the sides of the road to rot, a

junkyard filled with numerous cubes made from crushed cars, ugly back-alleys, warehouses filled with all kinds of crap, graffiti on the buildings' sides, a good amount of homeless people, and plenty of gangs, drug dealers, and people who are just punks, like these guys whom you see harassing women at the grocery store. The most notable house within the town is, of course, Tata Cuda's (which actually belonged to Tony Buba, the sound man, who also has a bit part as a drug dealer in that sequence near the end). It's one of the nicer-looking houses we see in the

neighborhood, and the same goes for the interior. It's definitely an upper middle-class sort of house, with a modest kitchen/dining room and a comfortable living room, but a lot of it also feels claustrophobic and oppressive, like the foyer, the staircase and second floor landing, with the railing's bars making it feel like a prison, and especially the stairs leading up to Martin's room, which are completely closed in. Said room is itself a white, sterile, and oppressive bit of attic space, with one window and little more than a

bed, a dresser, a lamp, and a mirror, indicating how Cuda hasn't exactly pulled out the welcome mat for his cousin and, again, is treating him more like a prisoner. And there are religious symbols to be found both throughout the house and outside, most notably in Cuda's bedroom, which is to the very right of the bottom of the stairs leading to Martin's room, along with other supposed vampire deterrents, like garlic. The other noteworthy home in the Braddock area is Abbie Santini's, which is in a suburb that seems to be

a fair distance from the actual town, and isn't quite as rundown and crappy-looking. Her house is the same way, both on the outside and the inside, looking like a very comfortable middle-class home. Other locations in Braddock include Cuda's store, where Martin ends up working; the poultry shop that he and Cuda visit near the end; the church, which, as in the movie itself, actually had burned down and was being rebuilt at the time; and the fog-enshrouded playground where Martin terrorizes Cuda while dressed as a vampire.

The one spot in the area itself which does have an actual, unspoiled beauty to it is this hill of tall grass which overlooks the town, which is where Martin and Abbie spend an afternoon after Christina leaves.

We do get a little bit of Pittsburgh itself, mainly when Martin first arrives, meets Cuda, and they take another train to Braddock. There's also a scene where Martin sneaks into the city at night and explores its seedier side, as he mills around a porno store, and also goes in and plays with a suggestive toy. In a nearby suburb is the home of the woman whom Martin intends to prey upon, which is definitely the nicest and fanciest home in the movie. It's not surprising, since her husband does seem to have a

pretty high-paying job, given his suit and car, and also because the neighborhood itself seems well-to-do. The house has something of a modern architecture look and feel to its exterior, and its interior is also rather interesting, with stark white walls and a dark-colored woodwork aesthetic to a number of rooms. The most striking room to me is the bathroom where Martin prepares his syringes, with its wallpaper pattern that's made up of thousands of white dots with slight, black borders around them. And speaking of

unusual wallpaper, the upstairs area just outside the bedroom has an even stranger pattern, which even the door to the bedroom is covered in. The bedroom itself is also kind of interesting, with the actual bed's deep blue bedspread and leopard pattern blanket atop it, and the look of the back wall and furniture, both of which that save modern architecture feel to them.

Real or imaginary, the setting of Martin's "flashbacks" is definitely the movie's most elaborate-looking environment, as it seems to be this big mansion, with a large spiral staircase, a chandelier hanging high above the foyer, a black-and-white pattern to the floor, some truly striking wallpaper along the wall leading up the stairs, and a dreamlike corridor leading to the girl's bedroom, with the wallpaper and a statue of a dog at the mouth of it. And, of course, there's an overwhelming Gothic feel to the place, thanks to not only the art direction but also the black and white

cinematography, the clothing, especially the girl's old-fashioned nightgown, the candelabra she carries, and the house's exterior, which has some stone steps and a planter that look and feel as though they're from another time and place. Martin also runs to what seems like an old well, near the edge of a dark, foggy forest, in order to wash the blood off himself.

Finally, the movie's opening on the train, which they shot inside an actual train (albeit, not while it was moving), makes good use of how claustrophobic that environment is, with Martin having to walk down the narrow corridor between the sleeping cots, avoiding one person's hand that's sticking out, in order to get to the bathroom, and the limited space he has to hide in when he prepares to jump his victim in her car. It also illustrates how the woman herself has virtually nowhere to run when she gets attacked, and yet, at 

the same time, help is nearby but also just out of reach. The next day, when Martin is trying to disembark, those corridors become badly cramped, with everyone smooshed together, and there's also a bit of suspense when some women are banging on the victim's cabin, saying they're looking for a friend. But just when it looks as though they're going to discover the body, their friend appears at the opposite end of the corridor. And since the woman told the conductor not to wake her when they reached Pittsburgh, nobody will know she's dead until they get to New York.

In a 2011 interview, George Romero said this about Martin: "[It's] designed so that all those supernatural monsters that are part of our literary tradition are, in essence, expurgations of ourselves. They are beasts we've created in order to exorcise the monster from within us... I tried to show in Martin that you can't just slice off this evil part of ourselves and throw it away. It's a permanent part of us, and we'd better try and understand it." The most overt embodiment of this idea is the character of Tata Cuda, who uses the belief that Martin is a vampire as an 

excuse to uphold his family's old, outdated, and, in some cases, downright barbaric and inhuman religious views and traditions, as well as to keep the myths from their home in the Old World alive. As mentioned earlier, Cuda is so single-minded and downright blind in his convictions that he's unable to have a normal conversation with the younger, more rational Father Howard, and is flabbergasted when the man doesn't take anything he says seriously. That's why he grabs onto the idea of Father Zulemus, who 

is old and claims to have performed the old rites, and together, they attempt an old-fashioned exorcism on Martin. By extension, Martin's entire family has been doing this same thing to him for his whole life, long before he met Cuda, with their bringing him up with the idea that he's a vampire until he now believes it, and with the family elder back in the old country having made the decision that, as per tradition, he must be brought to the home of his next of kin now that his mother is dead. 

Even though Martin constantly proves that he's not affected by religious imagery or garlic, and Cuda sees it with his own eyes, it doesn't deter him. In fact, when Martin appears in an obvious, stereotypical costume and makeup, he actually falls for it, and still believes he's a real vampire even when Martin shows him that it isn't real. Speaking of not believing what he sees, it's plain as day that Braddock is a dying town, and yet Cuda not only refuses to acknowledge it but derides those who do, including Father Carelli, Howard's predecessor, and Arthur when he talks

about getting out of town in order to find a job. The first time the latter comes up, Cuda insists that there is work to be found in Braddock and Arthur just isn't looking, and in the scene in the bar, he petulantly tells him, "I say go to all of you! If you don't want to be here, then we don't need you!" He then gets some of the older people in the bar to agree with him, which they do. Sure enough, just like Cuda, a lot of the older townspeople also embody dying traditions and attitudes. At the beginning, when Cuda tells his

regular customers about Martin, one of them, a Mrs. Bellini, comments, "A young man in the house with Christina? Related or not, I don't think it's right... You shouldn't have it, Cuda. How will it look?" Cuda, in an utter lack of self-awareness regarding his own behavior, answers, " It looks as you want it to look, Mrs. Bellini. My family knows how to behave." Near the end of the movie, Mrs. Bellini, for no discernible reason, lashes out at Martin, calling him lazy, and yells, "Cuda, you make him work! We work hard around here!"

While Night of the Living Dead can easily be called Romero's darkest and most intentionally scary film, I think Martin is probably his most downbeat and melancholic. The tone is absolutely somber, as you follow around this man who, regardless of whether or not he really is a vampire, and despite how dangerously he does prove to be, has been made into a monster by his own family. Instead of being allowed to grow up and develop his own personality and sense of self, he's had the label of vampire forced upon him from the day he was born, and has had to endure

religious fanaticism in the form of physical and mental abuse. And that abuse now continues following his mother's death, with Martin being forced to enter a very cruel world, unable to control his desire for human blood. Over the course of the movie, the only genuine human connection he makes is with Christina, and she eventually leaves Braddock in order to escape her family's insanity, something Martin can't do. Otherwise, you have his very toxic relationship with Cuda; the local radio DJ, who acts as though he's lending Martin a sympathetic ear but,

in reality, just talks with him because his calls arouse the interest of listeners; and the various other people who are abusive to him in some way, like Mrs. Bellini, and various gang members and drug dealers he runs afoul of. Even his relationship with Abbie Santini, which seems genuine on her part, is mostly just a way for her to get what she no longer gets from her husband, and in the end, she decides whatever connection she has with Martin is not enough to make her stick around, so she kills herself. Though he tells

the DJ that he's kind of glad it happened, as he's decided that friends and acquaintances only make things harder for him, he's still clearly shattered and feels abandoned. And then, ironically, the one major death in the film that he didn't commit is what prompts Cuda to stake Martin and bury him in a flowerbed.

While it's not as meta as something like Wes Craven's New Nightmare or Scream, the film does make for an interesting deconstruction of a genre. This mostly comes in how Martin continually attempts to dispel the perceived supernatural nature of vampires, both to Cuda and when tells the DJ about how all of the tropes you've come to associate with them because of movies and popular culture are "wrong." However, it also comes from an apparent conscious acknowledgement on Romero's part of what you expect from this kind of movie. You not only have all 

the expected deterrents that Cuda uses to try to control or repel Martin, but also the overly Gothic look and feel of the flashbacks, which, again, are possibly fantasies he's conjured as a result of his having seen so many vampire movies of the past. The scene in the playground, where he appears to Cuda dressed up in makeup and costume, is the most blatantly cliched moment, not only because of his getup, but because of a dark, foggy setting, and the scenario of an old man being "preyed upon" by a 

creature of the night. In most movies, this would be the scene where Martin is revealed to really be a vampire, but in this case, it's one more way for him to prove to both Cuda and the audience that what you expect is far from the truth, at least as how he sees it.

All that said, the movie isn't without its flaws. Besides Romero's editing, I feel that the last fifteen or so minutes, specifically after Christina leaves and leading up to when Cuda kills Martin, feel like a disjointed and random series of events. The way it goes from the montage of Martin stalking potential victims, as he tells the DJ that he's now having trouble picking someone and is starting to feel shaky, to him suddenly attacking and killing a pair of homeless men in an old storage building to feed on their blood feels, very jarring. That then leads into a

sequence where he breaks into a store in order to change his bloody clothes, only for him to get spotted and chased by the police. They chase him out of the store and into a nearby warehouse, where some drug dealers get caught up in the mayhem, leading to a shootout between them and the police, and finally a fatal car crash, after which Martin slips away into the night. On the one hand, I do like how, throughout this sequence, it cuts back and forth between the present and one of Martin's flashbacks, paralleling what's happening to him now, and again, contrasting what 

we expect in this kind of movie to what we're actually getting. And it is also nice how we're suddenly in a bit of an action scene in a movie that, beforehand, was mostly slow-paced and introspective (not that that's bad; I'm just saying). But, at the same time, it's such a sudden shift that my brain kind of felt a bit of whiplash. And right before Martin is staked, we get this random scene where he joins in a parade that goes through town. I know why it was shot, as the parade suddenly came through town while they were 

shooting and, since the sound of it made the scene they were doing unusable, they decided to get some shots of the parade and incorporate them instead. They put it in so Cuda's sudden staking of Martin would be more shocking. But, in the context of the story, I don't get what purpose it serves. Since you hear Martin's last talk with the DJ, where he tells him, "You get used to things, you know?... You get used to your life," maybe it's tied with that, but I'm not really sure.

If you've read a lot of my past reviews, you know that I don't like seeing this kind of thing in movies and, even if it is George Romero, I can't let it pass here, either: real animals being killed onscreen. Now, granted, we're talking about a chicken being killed in a poultry shop, and I don't know if Romero himself shot it or if it was pre-existing footage they put into the movie (it does match the film's quality, so who knows?), but either way, it doesn't add anything to see this chicken get its head sliced off, and its headless body convulsing while blood spews out of the stump 

of its neck, followed by it being plucked and gutted. It also looks like the owner was about to do the same to a duck he was holding but it cut away. It's just one little moment where Martin and Cuda are visiting a poultry shop, as you hear another voiceover of Martin talking with the DJ, but, again, it adds nothing to the movie and they could've easily filmed something else.

Although they'd known each other for a long time beforehand, this was the first time that Romero worked with Tom Savini. It was also early on in the latter's career, as he'd previously done makeup effects for Bob Clark's Deathdream, aka Dead of Night, and Deranged, and while he wouldn't really get to show off his talents until Dawn of the Dead, Martin still gives him plenty of opportunities to let the blood flow. Even though this was back when Savini hadn't yet perfected the formula for realistic-looking blood, moments such as when Martin slices 

open his first victim's wrists and does the same to one of the homeless men he attacks near the end, before drinking their blood, are really wince-inducing. The same goes for the aftermath of Abbie's suicide, which especially looks a tad too real for my taste. Also, when you see Martin's blood-covered mouth in the flashbacks, there is a definite kind of "ugh" quality to it created by the black and white. Probably the most famous kill is when Martin stabs a stick through Lewis' neck, as Savini later repurposed and perfected that effect for Kevin Bacon's death in Friday the 

13th (Savini has gone back and forth as to whether they actually used the same appliance from Martin or created a new one). Unfortunately, it doesn't look that great, as you can clearly see the separation between the fake neck and Roger Caine's real head, and that's probably why it's only onscreen for a couple of seconds. During the shootout between the police and the drug dealers, you get some bloody bullet wounds, including one guy who gets shot in the forehead and blood shoots out of the hole (again, this feels like a 

warmup for the many bloody squibs and gags in the shootouts in Dawn of the Dead). Finally, the movie ends on the bloody spectacle of Martin getting staked in the heart, which is just as gruesome as it is sad and tragic from an emotional standpoint, with lots of spurting blood.

Richard Rubinstein's brother, Donald, who would also go on to score Knightriders and, many years later, Bruiser, did the music for Martin. And like everything else, it's not the kind of music you would typically expect from a vampire movie. The main theme, which you hear in various versions throughout the movie, notably during both the scene at the beginning where Martin and Cuda travel to Braddock and the ending credits, is a very melancholic melody that, as others have noted, is akin to the first two bars of Johann Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, only slowed down. It perfectly fits with the sad, lonely air about Martin, and the overall tragedy of his story. There's also this vocalizing female voice that comes in from time to time, further emphasizing the sadness. Much of the score is, surprisingly, jazz-inspired, such as this one theme that sounds like it's played on an oboe and, while also certainly melancholic, isn't quite as morose as the main theme. Other parts of the music range from sounding suggestive and sexual, like this horn piece you hear when Martin is wandering the streets of Pittsburgh at night, to absurd and silly, like the kind of mocking theme you hear when Martin appears to Cuda in his vampire getup. The foot chase between Martin and the cops late in the movie is scored in a very low-key manner, with Rubinstein subtly tickling the ivories, while an oboe plays along with it. And the lead-up to when he discovers that Abbie has committed suicide, as well as a little bit afterward, is scored in a manner that sounds almost cartoonish, as if the music is making fun of Martin and saying, "Well, too bad for you, schmuck."

As happened a lot in Romero's career, he had to severely compromise his original vision for Martin. The first cut was extremely long, with some sources saying it was over three hours, while Michael Gornick, in Taste the Blood of Martin, one of the special features on Second Sight's Blu-Ray release, said it was a massive, "4 hours and 26 minutes." Naturally, Romero was forced to cut it down for distribution, with Gornick saying that a producer from New York was brought in to advise him on what he should lose, something Gornick could tell was painful for Romero to go through. As many diehard fans likely know, a print of a much longer version, running nearly 2 hours and 45 minutes, and in black and white, as Romero originally intended but which Richard Rubinstein advised against, was discovered in 2021 by Kevin Kriess and the Living Dead Museum. Unfortunately, said print was auctioned off in 2022, and can't be exhibited publicly. Moreover, like Dawn of the Dead, Rubinstein's company, the MKR Group, owns the rights to Martin as it officially stands, and because of his ridiculously high price for licensing it out, the film hasn't gotten a new American home media release since 2004. That's why, for now, the only really good Blu-Ray and 4K releases of both of those movies you can get are the Second Sight editions, which are region-locked. So, unless you're like me and have a region-free player, you're out of luck.

As I mentioned at the beginning, in 1979, Dario Argento released an Italian cut of Martin, re-titled Wampyr, and, while it wasn't in the Second Sight edition, it is often included as an extra feature on most home media releases, like the one by Arrow Video. Thus, I decided I might as well briefly mention it before we wrap things up here. Running 85 minutes, as opposed to Martin's 94, there are two things to note about Wampyr. One, the movie's structure is completely different, with many scenes reshuffled. For instance, it begins with Cuda leading Martin from the train station in Pittsburgh and taking him to Braddock, and it plays out as it did originally, up to when Cuda speaks to the women in his shop about Martin. Then, it cuts to him already working as a delivery boy, and after his first customer, he's back at the house, when he first meets Christina and runs from her, out the door. But then, it suddenly cuts to the original opening, onboard the train, with no indication that it's a flashback but, rather, that he actually got on a train, murdered a woman, and then disembarked with no one the wiser. After that sequence plays out, up to when Martin leaves his victim's car and goes back to his own, it cuts to that chicken being butchered (complete with new sound effects to emphasize said butchery), followed by Martin wandering about town, and then to him meeting and getting a ride from Abbie Santini. When she drops him off, we get the parade scene, then the dinner scene with Martin, Christina, and Cuda, as well as Arthur, and Martin listening to Christina and Arthur's offscreen argument. Christina's talk with Martin while he's washing dishes happens before her argument with Cuda here, the latter of which is followed by Martin sneaking out of the house, only here, it's the nighttime encounters he has with the gangs and the punks on motorcycles, rather than going into Pittsburgh and experiencing the seedy nightlife. After that is when Cuda makes him attend church, and the sequence of events plays out up to Cuda's conversation with Father Howard (the actual dinner scene with them is excised), which is cut off prematurely, before Howard can mention Father Zulemas' claim to have performed an exorcism. Following a short bit with Martin talking on the phone, we get him stalking the housewife and attacking her and Lewis, which plays out virtually as it is in the original, until he leaves the house, which cuts to him catching a train ride back to Braddock, which happens much later in the American version. After that is the attempted exorcism and Martin freaking Cuda out with his vampire getup, then Martin and Abbie hanging out in that field, which is shortly afterward followed by them having sex and Abbie crying on the couch, Martin getting yelled at by and then stalking Mrs. Bellini, him finding that Abbie has killed herself, and him wandering Pittsburgh's streets, which then transitions into him attacking the homeless guys and the ensuing chase and shootout. And finally, Christina leaves with Arthur, and Cuda stakes Martin.

As with Zombi, Argento's Italian version of Dawn of the Dead, Wampyr removes a lot of the substance and heart that Romero put into his film. This comes from both the translation, which isn't always accurate, and from the removal and reordering of various scenes. Most notably, Martin's calls into the radio program are replaced with him calling the local paper, telling them he's the murderer, and warning that he'll do it again, as well as later telling them that he didn't kill Abbie after having found her dead. Also, some of the scenes between Martin and Christina are removed, shortchanging the bond that does develop between them. In fact, when she leaves, that final moment between them is gone, and the same goes for her motivation for leaving, as the scene between Arthur and Cuda is removed, and Christina is leaving because she's sick of Cuda's obsession with vampires. Again, the scenes with Father Howard over at Cuda's home are drastically shortened, and the reordering of the moments between Martin and Abbie both weakens the impact of their relationship and also makes it nonsensical for him to be hanging out with her in that field when the last scene between them was when she frightened him by coming on to him. And much of what Romero was originally getting at, while not entirely lost, is lessened here. Like in the original, Martin does try to convince Cuda that there's nothing supernatural about him, but the removal of his talks with the radio DJ, does weaken it. (In fact, they further emphasize a connection between Martin's family and the vampire legend by saying they're from Transylvania.) The same goes for removal of much of the scene with Howard, and the one between Cuda and Arthur, as it hurts the impact of how Cuda is so set in his ways that he doesn't see how Braddock is falling apart. 

Finally, all of Donald Rubinstein's score was replaced with music by Goblin, which also pops up in scenes there originally was no music. Their music certainly isn't bad, and they sometimes do interesting experiments with it and the sound, such as how, when it's cutting back and forth between the real action and the flashbacks, the music will drop out, replaced with silence, save for a distant, rhythmic thumping like a heartbeat. But, their wild, exotic sound goes completely against the melancholic, reflective tone of the original. Overall, while it's certainly not terrible, I honestly wouldn't advise watching Wampyr unless you're just very curious or if you enjoy Zombi.

Though I don't see it as George Romero's unsung masterpiece the way some others do, Martin is definitely one of his most original and thoughtful films. Most notable for its unique take on and deconstruction of both the vampire myth and the popular tropes associated with it, it also benefits from a very strong central performance by John Amplas, an equally strong performances by Lincoln Maazel as Tata Cuda, inspired direction by Romero, a very raw, 16mm look, a setting that nicely served as an embodiment of urban decay, both in reality and the film itself, mostly effective makeup effects by Tom Savini, a memorably melancholic music score, and interesting and well done example of social commentary baked within the film, which leads to a truly shocking ending. However, the performances from some of the supporting characters, many of them non-professional actors, are just so-so; Romero's editing, while interesting in some instances, tends to be a tad distracting and a little too experimental overall; some of the makeup effects haven't aged well; there's an unnecessary instance of real animal death near the end; and while the slow pace isn't a problem for the most part, the last fifteen or so minutes tend to meander around without much purpose. It's not one of my absolute favorites of Romero's (though, it does have a chance to climb those ranks upon further viewings), but I can't deny that, from an artistic standpoint, this is one of his major accomplishments.