Outside of trips to the multiplex to see new releases–and yes, I plan to hit both of the big ones this weekend–I have been hitting a lot of heavy, artsy, critically-acclaimed, and, of late, foreign films with the Stacker Challenge. I’m currently about a week ahead on those posts, and felt like I needed a pallet-cleanser. Something that, while it didn’t have to be bad or anything, was just not likely to appear on any “best movies of all time” list. Maybe something that might count as a cult classic, a well-made but lesser-known movie in a genre that rarely appears on those aforementioned “best movies” lists.
Then I found that George Romero’s vampire movie Martin was on Tubi, and heck, Tubi actually listed it under a “cult classics” catergory.
Young Martin (John Amplas) moves from Indiana to a Pittsburgh to live with his older cousin Tateh Cuda (Lincoln Maazel). Cuda only took Martin in due to some family custom, a fact made obvious that Cuda outright despises the boy as soon as he lays eyes on him, referring to him immediately as a “nosferatu” pretty much immediately and setting out various anti-vampire wards around Martin’s room, all with the warning that Martin should stay far away from Cuda’s adult granddaughter Christina (Christine Forrest). There’s just two problem here: Martin demonstrates that none of Cuda’s wards and protections actually do anything, so he might be just a normal human being, but he had murdered a woman on the train to Pittsburgh and drank her blood in the movie’s opening minutes. Is Martin a vampire?
Well, that’s what the movie sets to figure out because it’s a bit complicated. Martin claims he has a thirst for blood and is older than he looks. Cuda agrees with that assessment, but Martin also seems to believe he’s a vampire. It’s just that, aside from some black-and-white flashbacks to what looks Martin in a more Gothic horror sort of vampire story suggesting that Martin is at least a century old, Martin doesn’t believe there’s anything supernatural about what he does. He knocks victims out with a syringe full of drugs, then uses a razor blade to cut open the unconscious victim and then drink the blood to satiation and leave behind a corpse, often a naked one. So, is Martin an actual vampire? He thinks so. Cuda thinks so. Everyone else, not so much, and he’ll claim he isn’t if he isn’t calling into the local radio station where he’ll say the magic stuff is a lie. What is going on here?
That’s a good question. Martin hears a woman’s voice calling his name, and there is a suggestion that he can get by without blood. Is he immortal? It may not matter since the movie is clear the guy is a murderer. Romero was apparently interested in exploring how once the monstrous side of a monster is removed, there’s still an evil person left. Martin is a vampire who isn’t the slightest bit supernatural, but he’s still a dangerous killer. Cuda thinks he’s possessed by the devil or something, but it may not matter as Martin is, ultimately, just as mortal as anyone else. There’s even a suggestion for how Martin can stop murdering, but it may not work out so well. It’s an interesting idea for vampirism, one where it may not be a supernatural being so much as a psychologically damaged person.
But in terms of execution, I’m not sure this did much for me. Romero’s movie doesn’t look like it was a particularly big budget affair, one where the cast is made up entirely of actors where the only ones I was familiar with was Romero himself as a priest and make-up legend Tom Savini as Christina’s working-class boyfriend. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does limit how much Romero might be able to do with his movie. And, for me, it’s fine. It’s not on the level of Romero’s first two zombie movies, but it’s also not in any way terrible. As a pallet-cleanser, it certainly worked at any rate.
Grade: B-
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