By Richard Winters
My Rating: 7 out of 10
4-Word Review: Teenager craves women’s blood.
Martin (John Amplas) is a teenager, who has dreams of living long ago as a vampire, who travels to live with Tateh (Lincoln Maazel) in the outskirts of Pittsburgh. Tateh is an elderly man that is highly superstitious and immediately suspects Martin of being a vampire and puts up certain ‘repellents’ like a crucifix and garlic as a defense against him though these prove to have no effect. Martin gets a job as a grocery delivery boy where he meets Abbie (Elayne Nadeau) a lonely housewife who makes attempts to seduce him. Martin has some attraction towards her, but still craves blood and uses some syringes that he has to attack female victims by injecting them with a serum that will put them to sleep and allow him to cut their arms and drink their blood. He though internally struggles with his actions and feelings and thus calls a radio station to discuss his quandary with the DJ, which goes out over the air and he soon becomes a local celebrity known at ‘The Count’.
By the time this was ready to be made writer/director George A. Romero was deep in debt and struggling to maintain a living as a filmmaker and considering get out of the business altogether. While he had achieved great success with Night of the Living Dead he’s subsequent films failed to generate any profit and where critically panned. Many of the investors of those projects refused to give him any money to make this one fearing it would be a financial dud forcing him to scrape together a meager $100,000 on his own in order to get it produced while leaning on friends and family members, including Romero himself who plays a priest, to fill-in as cast members. However, for the most part the low budget works in the film’s favor. I liked the grainy, faded color that helped accentuate Martin’s fringe, lonely existence and the on-location shooting done in the town of Braddock, Pennsylvania gives it an earthy, rustic appeal.
The best part though is that it works against the vampire stereotypes and gives the age-old folklore a fresh new perspective. The fact that the expected vampire repellents don’t work on him kept it fun by not devolving into the tired cliches. The mystery too as to whether Martin really was a vampire, or just thought he was and no real explanation as to his ‘memories’, which get shot in black-and-white, as being just that, or instead simply fantasies, kept it intriguing. It also forces the viewer to see things from a different point-of-view as in this case it’s not the kid who thinks he’s vampire that’s the real threat, but more the ‘normal’ people around him. This leads to the movie’s best and most memorable moment where he quietly sneaks into the home of a potential female victim that he thinks is alone only to find to his shock that she’s having a secret affair with another man and the chaos that ensues, where both sides misreading the other, is both humorous and exciting while putting a new spin on how we perceive horror.
The only drawbacks are with Martin’s belief that he’s ‘careful’ during his attacks, so that he’ll ‘never get caught’, which is a bit flawed. For one thing he doesn’t wear a mask, so a witness could easily identify him later and there’s no explanation about the injecting sleep potion and how being a kid with little money he’s able to obtain it, or if it’s something he cooked-up himself and if so what did he use to make-it? It is though fun to watch the effects of it as it doesn’t work immediately and his victims will struggle with him quite a bit before they finally go under, which is another element that puts this above most other horror films as the perpetrator is usually always shown as being confident and fully in-control when attacking those he preys on while here it’s the opposite and many times comes close to the victim getting close to overpowering him, which actually heightens the tension.
Having Abie, a middle-aged woman, essentially come-on to Martin right away and even answers her door half-dressed seemed inauthentic. Maybe it’s a product of a bygone era where teens were still considered overall innocent and only the adults with dirty ulterior motives, but she seemed way too unguarded while believing that because he was shy that made him ‘harmless’. While children that are quiet that can sometimes be considered the case, but with teens who don’t say much and being loners can be perceived as anti-social and thus single women would be more defensive around someone like that instead of less.
I also didn’t care for actor Jon Amplas’ teeth as the front tooth appeared capped with a bright white crown while the ones around it where yellowish though I suppose this worked with the character as he was too poor to afford a decent dentist and some could also read into it that the white crown represented possibly a ‘fang’ of some sort. Overall though it’s quite good and helped resurrect Romero’s career. The surprise ending alone makes it worth it. Definitely one vampire movie that deserves more attention and should be listed as one of the best of its genre.
My Rating: 7 out of 10
Released: October 27, 1977
Runtime: 1 Hour 35 Minutes
Rated R
Director: George A. Romero
Studio: Libra Films
Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Tubi
Scopophilia 