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".
网飞这两亿刀花得比《红色通缉令》值太多了。精彩密集的打斗编排，罗素兄弟用实力教迈克尔贝如何拍好爆炸追车，频繁地使用烟花浓雾作为打斗背景也是非常让人耳目一新。故事推进之迅速，让我罕见地全程没有一秒钟玩手机。
阿莫多瓦的镜头下，永远充满着母性的悲悯与力量。不同于《痛苦与荣耀》凝聚着极为私人的情感，这一部电影借由佩内洛普的目光和言语，去勾勒出一个女性抉择与宏大的历史脉络之间相互映衬的联结。一方面是寻找逝去的亲人，一方面是忍住悲痛去讲出孩子的真相，而在这种女性独有的境遇之下，隐喻的是对于历史的正视与真相的寻找。虽然全片刚刚达到及格线，不过好在佩内洛普的发挥依然稳定。
【20220529】4星或许稍多，毕竟不是阿莫多瓦最好的作品（甚至没有接近），可是依然骗得到眼泪。最近开始着迷阿莫多瓦，他的作品太温柔了，在钢筋水泥的世界里需要些柔软的承接。香港的翻译叫做“谁和谁共母”，本质上是一个基因溯源的故事--其实和片中的考古挖掘祖辈乱葬墓也是平行主线。影片结局的态度是，追根溯源是人的天性，所以历史不会被以往。This seems gratuitous, but serves as a universal value. 篡改历史和事实得到的，只能是扭曲和变态的果实。
【NYFF59】3.5；和主题割裂感过重，Penelope的表演虽好但总感觉没有好到影后程度（我先滑跪一个）有几处剧本很出彩。虽然主题部分做得有点别扭，但最后一幕出来的时候还是挺感慨的，个体与族群的痛苦之根融合为一，无人能不动容。
大家说割裂，我倒觉得是相当艺术的做法，概念分配得很好，可能是因为形式上还是老做法所以显得割裂吧
赞成厚重的东西轻轻地说，但前后割裂得太明显，感觉是没有准备得当就开拍了。男人随着历史被埋葬隐形，女人在传承在面对。“历史永远不会沉默。不论他们如何诋毁、篡改、伪造，人类的历史都拒绝保持沉默。”
3.5 是越老越稳重还是越老越畏缩？失掉了年轻时的疯癫，一惊一乍的特色倒是不减当年。
阿莫多瓦最新影片，Cruz身上所具有的西班牙风情的野性之美太吸引人了，恭喜提名奥斯卡女主。还是那个很会拍奇情影片的阿莫多瓦，对准女性之间具有的互助，信手拈来处理得当的极具戏剧性的故事情节，生活中处处充满狗血，但在面对这样的历史悲痛事件中这一切都算不了什么，还有更需要值得我们去铭记的事情。怪不得西班牙没有送这部影片到戛纳
不过即便如此，该片依然称得上是自《疾速追杀3》后最好的动作片，就冲这点它值得我的五星。
又狗血又平淡，女人主宰世界吧，男人不是xxx年后会灭绝吗，挺好的。
历史与当下，记忆与生命，前行的同时也不能忘记伤痕。比起两位母亲因缘际会进入彼此生命的主线，这条暗线或许才是创作者的意图。
母爱和政治，两条平行线，没有连起来。母亲这条线的故事好看！
故事太过狗血刻意，感觉就是专门为佩内洛普·克鲁兹这个角色施展演技而铺路。不过她的表演也十分给力。
包含了女性和历史两个题材，后者是我没想到的
关于女性和母亲的命题作业越往后越难了，人世间就那么点话题。阿莫多瓦也需要突破了。
阿莫多瓦塑造了一个伟大的西班牙女性形象，近代西班牙女性的历史在她身上铺陈开来，着眼未来之前更重要的是要了解我们的过去，只要抱有信念的人还存在 历史就不会沉默（此片需要配合《沉默正义》共同观看 P.S 讲述女性主义不能靠《最后的决斗》式的意淫，要靠Janis式的真实生活的承载
分类到底要不要写“同性”呢？“同性”难道不就是“爱情”片吗？ 考古的部分虽然很有趣（甚至作为最后的升华） 但是实在不明白和全片有多少关系/ 说Anita died那里 我后面大姐大叫出声 全电影院为之一震/ 全场收获最多笑声的角色：Teresa（妈妈）：Oh where are the babies？； coffee？ Brandy. 真是没有maternal intuition第一人了....
本以为会是个简单甚至会有点狗血的交换孩子的影片，但结尾“平行母亲”让人震撼，使其升华。
3.5 前一小时半一直四星来着，落脚点太奇怪了
用120m去了解一个人的苦难，很痛苦，但幸好，她活了过来；色彩就肯定是阿莫多瓦啦！人物所做的一系列举动看似不符合常理，但这就是阿莫多瓦的故事啦！
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