Martin (1977, George A. Romero) (Patreon)

61/100

Second viewing, last seen 1997. Were this a brand-new film, I'd likely declare my rating provisional, subject to change following another, hopefully more clarifying look. Instead, this is another look, and I've somehow gone from enthused certitude to semi-appreciative bewilderment. Asked to describe Martin a few days ago, I'd have called it the story of a deeply mixed-up teenager who decides that he's a vampire—a less absurdist, more disturbing version of Nicolas Cage's role in Vampire's Kiss. That's what I vaguely remembered*. And the opening sequence, in which Martin kills a woman on the train to good ol' Pittsburgh, draining and drinking her blood using a razor blade rather than fangs, certainly seems to support that interpretation. So I was surprised and flummoxed when it became clear that Martin-as-Nosferatu is in fact Cuda's insane conviction, to which Martin repeatedly objects even as he (apparently) continues to act it out. Had to throw in that parenthetical because what's real vs. what's imagined isn't even as simple as color vs. b&w, which is the dichotomy that I (again) vaguely recalled; the absence of any fallout from Martin's murders—investigative or otherwise—makes me wonder whether I'm meant to conclude that they take place only in his head (though that would undermine the ending's dark irony, so I kinda doubt it). In any case, Martin's pathology now strikes me as bizarrely opaque. Is he endeavoring to embody the "family curse," even as he explicitly rejects and mocks it around Cuda and others? Is he a sexually frustrated serial killer employing vampirism as a convenient excuse? [Barton Fink voice] Both, maybe? Neither is wholly satisfying, to my mind—either way, it feels as if we're being asked to empathize with someone who's not far removed from Ted Bundy—but I remain more intrigued than repelled, and am open to the possibility that I'm missing something.

All of that falls under the heading of What's This Picture About? Viewed strictly from the standpoint of craft, Martin definitely has the Romero touch, which I'd define, somewhat paradoxically (and that's exactly how it plays to my eyes), as remarkably assured amateurism.  There's an unmistakable roughness to his early work, even when you calibrate for minuscule budgets, but not an ounce of sloppiness; shots are at once carefully composed (glad I watched this on YouTube, in its original Academy ratio, rather than via the butchered 1:85 DVD I own) and productively, unnervingly devoid of Hollywood spit and polish. John Amplas' performance, likewise, straddles the line between strategic and "found," for lack of a better word—it's not clear to me that he had any better sense of what's going in Martin's head than I currently do, but he nonetheless manages to create a strong sense of internal chaos with a bare minimum of actorly fuss. Other elements are wobblier (*cough* Savini *cough*), and the radio call-in show, while quite effective, really ought to have been introduced a bit earlier given the amount of emotional weight it's eventually asked to carry. Mainly, though, I just no longer feel as if I have a firm grasp on this character's predator/victim ratio. Perhaps that's the whole idea.

* Should note that my memory of Vampire's Kiss, which I saw once 30 years ago, is equally vague. Though of course I've encountered Cage's loopiest moments many times since then.