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".
非常非常棒，细节决定成败。
汤普森阿姨依旧演技炸裂；男主有着古希腊雕塑般的诱惑。阿姨说，sexual fulfillment是很powerful的，让人alive。幸好没有等到老了才明白，感恩一路走来的那些人。
着实干净坦然，也许只有女性导演才会拍的如此温柔细腻和理想化吧，艾玛好有灵魂，细微的体态动作都是语言
圣丹斯电影节总会带来惊喜。简单至极的电影场景，复杂的人物对话，以对白驱动故事发展，好像也多如牛毛，但这部片子有许多讨巧之处。女性导演在探讨女性内心，本身就很有看点。
言语间提到的扮成猫、看电视一些看似古怪或过于寻常的行为背后，是那些孤独，需要存在感，又深切爱着自由的灵魂。
倒是想起之前和ex睡前睡后并肩坐在床上的对话，那些沮丧的、欢欣的、诚实的、矫饰的、难解的、无法重演的。
简单说三点感想：
她说“身体只是我们的一个容器”，她让我们看到，即使容器中盛满了一生也可以如此轻盈自由
对话写得蛮好，但是男主的角色设定不太合理，被忽视的原生家庭下真的能塑造出这样耐心且愿意聆听的性格吗……P. S这不就是提供性服务的心理咨询师吗……
要不是看到Emma Thompson主演，这个题材我是不会感兴趣的，但出于对Emma Thompson演技派的信任，我就想看了。这是一部颠覆我对牛郎印象的电影。我对中国牛郎的印象就是一群好吃懒做、空有身材、毫无内涵的体育生。但电影里的牛郎Leo彬彬有礼、谈吐不俗、善解人意、不卑不亢、自尊自爱，简直像个绅士，让人大有好感。我知道导演的主旨是女性应该不以性为耻，应该自爱自强。简言之存人欲去道德。最后Nancy得到了救赎，抛弃了循规蹈矩、墨守陈规、按部就班，获得了人性的解放。但我觉得导演对牛郎这个行业想象得太美好了。更可能的是瘾君子、小开、骗子或黑帮分子。男主挺帅，身材超好，正值30岁时拍的电影。这真是一部很省场外费用的电影。
本人最爱的是那支舞和结尾——第一次接受，当fantasy来到现实，也许并不会那么糟糕。
看完后激情推荐给好朋友，虽然我并没有达到解放的程度（看到最后几分钟，还要拉上窗帘，因为和隔壁男生宿舍的窗是相对的），但很开心看到这样的影片，世间还存在里奥这样神奇的男子，即使没有付出行动也能明白身体愉悦会给人带来的巨大改变。
老阿姨想法哈多，沙大啊
单一地点+老戏骨的组合很难不让人想到《困在时间里的父亲》，后者在影片技法上还是要更有层次一些，而这部电影的强势就在于每个段落高潮前的那一点铺垫，都恰到好处。
You have the mysterious gift of being a sex saint. 夸人就要这么夸。
I’m so glad her first orgasm is with herself!
对比，世界上最糟糕的人，你觉得我是谁。I want it, I want it very much。你是我一生唯一冒过的险。无聊的名字，无聊的人生，一生遵守父权定下的女性规则，从未逾越（愉悦）。31年的夫妻生活，机械运动，假装高潮，这是我唯一学会的性爱姿势。我永远在下面，No oral。从未尝试在上面，后面。前戏后戏，爱抚抚摸，深入探索彼此的身体。性是美妙，不是可耻，Concupiscense。最后的看着年轻的肉体，手指深入，自w，对镜自照，下垂的乳，松垮的肌肤，容貌焦虑，body shame再也无法击垮我，每一道皱纹都是我努力赚来的。我也有欲望，我想要！我就是老色鬼！seedy old pervert。毕竟谁不贪恋年轻的肉体，如水的肌肤，紧凑的胸肌，腹肌，口水。。中间的越线，小鲜肉的身子，更想要TA的灵，灵与肉双修。
再再次，亲密关系不限于为爱鼓掌，每个人的需求不一样，可能只是倾诉和被倾听，过程获得关注和认同，但结果都是获得安抚。更高质量的可能是双方彼此为镜，看见未被自己发现的优点，照见自己的视差之见，纠正认知偏差，获得更好的自己，心理生理上都come。
剧本过于工整了，还有汤普森阿姨这惊天一脱，我的妈呀！[B+]
当它就在这里，触手可及的时候。”
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