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".
华纳想要把这么多超级英雄一次性在一部电影里集结完毕本来就是不可能的任务，四小时时长角色与角色之间的衔接仍然尴尬。
整部影片舉重若輕，人如鴻毛在時代的洪流中。從臺上到臺下，陽間到陰間，歷史是一出唱不完的戲，一條渡不完的河。個體身上的灰塵和苦難，抖也抖不盡，說也說不完，但還是要說，不管是用嶄新的話語還是古老的曲調也要說，不然時間就是一碗孟婆湯，抹掉了真實的鮮活的記憶，只留下白茫茫的一片廢墟。
近几年的华语最佳。导演的美术功底了得，鬼气森森的舞台布景在叙事和美学上都无比加分。这样的人间与黄泉冥府又有何等差别？唏嘘不已#filmothèque
有生之年系列2.0！不负期待，有史以来最好的超级英雄电影，4h看完只想说一句:“扎导牛逼！”
从《痴》《姑奶奶》到《椒麻堂会》，一路证明，邱炯炯是天才。
邱炯炯无疑是影像「文体家」，素人演员、搭建的舞台感十足的场景、内在的悲剧感混杂着荒诞和（黑色）幽默都是他的语法，以抵达一种恰好的（甚至如履薄冰般的）tone。新戏从来演旧事……生死不外两茫茫。为了活着，伶人总是在唱堂会；为了忘记，还要孟婆汤续杯。洪流般时代下的个体之人，黄泉路上吃吃饱搓个麻将吧。
是对《痴》的全面升级，是一个完全生发自自己的艺术家电影，他有自己的密电码。
故事丰满了，人物更立体，是有点燃。电影都上导剪版该多好
第一次看四小时的电影，还是在电影院一口气看完的，丝毫不觉得困倦和漫长。更阴沉更严肃，褪去了庸俗趣味，铺垫够足，剧情讲究，越看越燃，末尾大战不再马马虎虎匆匆了事，闪电侠不再是只会卖萌的小傻蛋，忘记院线版吧，这才是我想要的《正义联盟》！！！！！Jared Leto短短几分钟演绎的小丑勾魂摄魄，比《自杀小队》里出色太多了！郑凯的原子侠出奇的顺眼，戏份终于增多的丧钟直接让我看高潮了！全片数处缺点难忍：弱化了老爷的核心表现，慢镜滥用，配乐尴尬，女声呐喊反复出现，海王喝酒一段从白条纹的雄壮摇滚乐改成格外违和的抒情乐（扎导你没必要为了和院线版区分而改掉），最违和的当属闪电侠救人，夸张的慢镜加暧昧的情歌，全场都忍俊不禁了。（院线版就开头十分钟拍得好，尾灯选的《Everybody Knows》搭配一个没有超人的绝望世界让人屏息凝气）
Austin Asian American Festival
啊 这浑然打开而不受限的感觉 库斯图里卡般满屏放烟花的感觉 大大小小一切皆为过往的感觉 期待重看一遍
有点长，但还是很特别，像动画片。另一个「在这世界的角落」。
4.5，光怪陆离。#AustinAsianAmericanFilmFestival
86/100 应是2020s年代前五的华语片水平。属于邱炯炯的《电影史》：从二三十年代默片（居然想到《将军号》）到革命样板戏…再到各种后现代的拼接，在手工影棚（美学风格部分离不开业内又非职业人员组成的工作坊的生产方式）里穿越大半个20世纪中国，同时电影又是借由肖像（个体）与空间（大环境）来穿越历史。电影在现实与梦境、生与死间跳转，人物在政治和艺术之间周旋，新的生发于旧的，旧的又因各种原因深埋于新事物之中，某一瞬间，才意识到封建时代的幽魂从未完全散去（像那个黄面蜡像）。一个核心张力在于，社会中所有新的变化，最终都多多少少在处理与过去的某种关系。喜欢合照那段似乎总是置身事外的坨儿对camera的“接管”——一段取景器内的黑白段落，提醒着观众面对历史的更换要始终保持警醒，这也是艺术间离的成功体现。
但他哪有某些导演剪辑版狂热粉丝黑的那么那么神，能把电影改成面目全非。
震撼、回味、经典，如此形容扎导的作品一点都不过分，四个多小时看似长得咋舌，实际看下去觉得根本不够看。恢宏的悲歌，多线索的描绘，生与死成和败都不再是三言两语能够解释清楚的事情。每一位英雄都有自己的抱负和顾虑，不是简简单单三言两语就开打的无脑剧情，看完才感觉上映版是如此地粗糙潦草。
邱炯炯无疑是影像「文体家」，素人演员、搭建的舞台感十足的场景、内在的悲剧感混杂着荒诞和（黑色）幽默都是他的语法，以抵达一种恰好的（甚至如履薄冰般的）tone。新戏从来演旧事……生死不外两茫茫。为了活着，伶人总是在唱堂会；为了忘记，还要孟婆汤续杯。洪流般时代下的个体之人，黄泉路上吃吃饱搓个麻将吧。
#非DC粉表示留下了激动而愉悦的两行老泪，希望DC老总们行行好别再作，咱学学对家，有宇宙有常驻，我很看好这一批阿阿阿阿
#thesnydercut# 三年断断续续的参与导剪运动，现在是时候move on啦
我常常想，电影的结尾有没有一种除了大梦一场之外的形式，但好像也很难。除了写个隽永的结尾带点梦幻，和现实连上，就是告诉观众，这里结束了，你该醒了。本片在它自身是很完整的，只是我一直在期待着更多！更多！小丑戏本身就不承担那么多别的东西。所以唯一一点遗憾，可能就是椒麻于内于外都太完整了。
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