Martin is a kid with problems. You see, he has an addiction - not to heroin, cocaine, alcohol or painkillers, but to human blood, which is considerably more problematic a controlled substance to score. Martin introduces its title character with a Hitchcokian sequence aboard a passenger train en route to Manhattan, where we witness his chilling modus operandi: He breaks into a beautiful woman's cabin, injects her with a sedative, violates her unconscious body, slashes her veins open with a razor blade and gorges himself on her blood.
Doesn't sound like a very sympathetic character, does he? Follow him around for an hour and a half, and you just might be surprised. He can't turn into a bat or a mist; he can't mesmerize women into giving themselves over to him completely (he needs hypodermic needles for that); crosses have no effect on him, exorcism is useless and sunlight merely hurts his eyes. There's nothing cool or romantic about being a humanoid leech here. "It's not magic," he explains lamentingly "There's no such thing as real magic, ever."
A sad, mournful, funeral-dirge of a movie, Martin is Romero's most personal and poignant work. In fact, while he will doubtlessly be best remembered for his zombie epics Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, this relatively obscure just might just be his true meisterwerk, a harrowing journey into the world of a human monster.
Much like Henry James did with his masterful mind-fuck The Turn of the Screw, Romero keeps his audience guessing as to whether Martin is a story about the supernatural or all-too natural mental illness. Is his compulsion to drink blood fueled by an old family curse or insanity? Is Martin an 84 year-old vampire or a deeply disturbed teen? Are his visions of the past (rendered in luminous horror-show black and white) bona fide flashbacks or psychotic fantasies inspired by one too many late night monster movies? Either answer is just as likely as the other. Just when you find yourself leaning in one direction, Romero grabs you by your ear and yanks you in the other.
Amplas gives a tender, expressive performance as the title character, an old man in a young man's body who is sad at his plight but resigned to his fate. Lincoln Maazel - in his one and only film performance - is utterly convincing as superstitious old Uncle Cuda, who vows to save his nephew's soul before destroying his body. Romero's wife Christine as Cuda's daughter, FX meister Savini as her boyfriend, and Romero as the local priest who seems more interested in his own addictions to liquor and cigarettes than with the salvation of human souls. Like David Cronenberg, the fact that Romero is an actor's director is frequently overlooked by the horrific subject matter of his stories. As is so often the case, you're left wondering why these people didn't go on to bigger things, because they've got the acting chops to spare. Michael Gornick's photography vividly captures the aura of decay hanging over Rust Belt Pittsburgh, a soul-crushing place of stagnation where nothing grows. Rapid-fire editing (by the maestro himself) and a haunting score certainly don't hurt either.
Anchor Bay's DVD is a revelation. What always looked like a muddy movie on VHS is proven to be surprisingly beautiful looking film with clear, vibrant colors and smooth shades of gray during the black and white "flashback" sequences. An alternative soundtrack was created for the European release by Goblin which, sadly, isn't included on the DVD. (There's also a song called "Martin" by the band Soft Cell, which fans will find well worth hunting down.) But the real treat here is the film's trailer, which features Amplas addressing the camera in character, describing his plight matter-of-factly to the viewer.
