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".
其实这剧台词正是电影的题眼所在，那些给差评的朋友们，应该想一想是，不是真的在用心感受一部电影所带给你的感情，还是说每一类型的电影都要用一种相对固定的范式去解读？见仁见智吧。这部电影的感动，起码真正热爱电影的人们一定会get
香港夏日国际电影节闭幕电影。从上海电影节开始，山田导演延续了每次把我看得眼泪婆娑的传统。一个爱电影的老混蛋，78岁才知道那个20多岁放弃的剧本如何金光闪闪。人生是多困难的一件事，你的不奋斗或者是最爱你的人的困苦。人生从无逆转，只是一些转折让人更乐观一点。还要坚持的，好的或者坏的。
被电影之神照顾的剧本终于重见天日，重拾当年的梦想总算是个完满的结局，时间的列车从不停止，不能等到人生将尽才能醒悟啊。
依稀可见浪子回头情怀，山田洋次这部算比较平庸的一部，也算是新冠疫情呼吁保护电影行业宣传片了。
到底姜是老的辣，一场一场前有铺垫后有收尾的小叙事特别圆熟，画外的声音啊配角的表情小动作啊之类的细节相当多，是山田洋次所以并不意外，只是连着看了这么多天风格不同的电影，对这个烟火气感到很亲切。对这个故事最大的意见是老少中间的断裂感，怎么一个意气风发才华横溢的新导演，摔了个跟头就一蹶不振了，这么多年都干了些啥，从此没再碰电影？好好的苏打怎么就成了这样个臭老头？
呜呜呜，2021年度最爱的电影《电影之神》，山田洋次，一个无论拍多少部都值得期待的电影导演，非常纯真璞拙（给每一个爱电影的人的情信）。如果真的有神明的话，请无论如何捕捉到每一帧每一帧每一帧栖居的aura，摄影机运动的闪瞬间。好想在影院银幕前再看一遍TuT流眼泪TuT
剧本太无聊了甚至腐朽。有创新的稚嫩想法，没有落实的坚决信念，最后回归放荡的本性任其一生。理所当然地仗着他人的爱意和奉献而“过得幸福”，拾起来才华就可以一帆风顺，家庭和人生的失职则可以弃之不顾。洋次郎是带资进组吗（笑）
把过去那段单独拎出来成片就好了，菅田将晖演技又进步了呀，现实就是有的人能成为导演而有的人只能做AD啊
剧情其实可以说老套 但是因为这些真实倾注的情感 所以喜欢电影的人应该都会被感动到 小津呼啸的火车 原结子的微笑 最后和伍迪艾伦呼应 原来巴斯特基顿才是“电影之神” 另外那句“讲十分的话 用七分的力 讲七分的话 才要用十分的力”也希望后辈编剧和演员都纹在身上警醒自己比较有用。
6.0明显看出几年前阿凡索卡隆《罗马》的影响。但影片内容与影像风格严重割裂。
没有那么的好，但布拉纳这个我之前没什么好印象的导演这次却足够让我动情。私人的感情夹杂在童年的回忆里，这是对故人、游子最好的礼物。
一秒钟的电影胶片放进相机里，可以拍12张照片」「一个一个的镜头里，寄宿着神灵，那是电影之神」
一部光片名就能让人燃起浑身热血的电影，但处理的还是过于“山田洋次”了，气韵都在，但就是没有特色。选角很成功，囧子在镜头里有了昭和气质，美。
[2021.09.30 @bc] +，看完了高先做的一周山田洋次电影展，无缝衔接电影之神，还是被狠狠戳到了，献给电影的电影。
3.5 其实并没有那么好，但依然被某种真挚表达的东西打动。就好像生活里你见到不那么会表达的人，甚至表达的东西本身也没什么稀奇，但依旧会被他的真挚纯粹感动到一样。大概是被真诚本身感动到吧？
讴歌女性用自己的苦难为渣男撑起一切的爱情，诡计多端的导演😊
虽然没有山田洋次鼎盛时期的三分之一水准，但女儿念出父亲写的获奖感言时还是被感动了。
3.5 其实并没有那么好，但依然被某种真挚表达的东西打动。就好像生活里你见到不那么会表达的人，甚至表达的东西本身也没什么稀奇，但依旧会被他的真挚纯粹感动到一样。大概是被真诚本身感动到吧？
ps不要心疼别人，有那闲工夫先心疼自己吧
就算是山田洋次也無法買帳，劇情老套，人設迂腐，芝居がクサイ。拍電影也沒講好，愛情線也沒講好。喜歡的就只有救濟映畫館和暗示松竹經典作。幾乎是本片僅有的兩個正常人：Lily和志尊淳。
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