Martin

Martin (1977) (BluRay Second Sight) 2NDBR4168 (Cert 18)

After a lengthy absence from our cinemas, TV screens and video sources, George Romero’s 1977 film ‘Martin’ is back, and in a 4K restoration for our viewing. Packed with a feature length ‘making of’, interviews, TV and radio spots and voiceovers, it’s a horror fan’s dream.

That George Romero was far better known as ‘the zombiemeister’, didn’t put anyone off checking out Romero’s take on what was, by then, a rather hackneyed genre of horror film. Romero consistently turned out a quality product and this was no exception.

Martin (John Amplas) is a solitary, directionless young man who bears the heavy burden of believing himself to be a vampire. Martin’s appearance is hardly that of vampire legend, an anonymous young man who wanders the streets in broad daylight, with an immature streak to him that makes him seek out joke shops to buy trick guillotines and the like.

Boarding a sleeper train from Indianapolis to Pittsburgh, Martin, hypo between his teeth like a pirate with his knife, he sedates a young woman, cuts her forearm with a razor blade and, amid her pleading, lets her bleed to death, drinking the gore in silence. It’s a shocking scene, and one which leaves the viewer in no doubt as to the rough ride they’re in for.

Met by his elderly Lithuanian Catholic cousin Tateh Cuda (Lincoln Maazel) at the station, he takes him home and treats him like a prisoner, hangs garlic all over the house, even calling him ‘Nosferatu’. Martin slowly adapts to life in his adopted hometown, tramping the neighbourhood of scrapyards and steel mills, reluctantly agreeing to work in the family shop. Any thought his cousin might have had that this would curtail his activities was wrong, as the shop only serves to put him in touch with more potential victims.

Calling his local radio station, he talks about his vampiric activities, debunking some of the myths he feels have grown up around his fellow creatures. Dubbed ‘The Count’ by the incredulous DJ, he becomes a regular phone-in guest on the show, no doubt to the great, misplaced amusement of the listeners.

The matter-of-fact atmosphere of this tale is perhaps the most unnerving part of it. Martin, ever helpful, agrees to do odd jobs for random women he meets, stalking others with deliberate intent, and all unnoticed and unhindered by the police and citizens of this sleepy backwater. His chilling modus operandi is always the same; play the innocent, get into their confidence and then strike with hypo and razorblade. His gentle assurances that it won’t hurt, and they’ll just go to sleep, sound more like a kindly hospital nurse than a bloodthirsty killer. At one point, he befriends a lonely widow, Mrs. Santini (Elayne Nadeau) with whom he begins an affair, leading, crucially, to a temporary respite from his blood hunger.

The light touch direction from Romero on this ‘through the keyhole’ tale lifts it far above the mechanised gorefests that would later overpopulate the drive-ins and video shops of the 80’s. The film gently secretes a ravening killer in the midst of a town where nothing of any interest ever happens, and even invites the viewer to feel a little sympathy for the young man who is certainly impelled by some powerful force to perform these awful deeds.

Scenester

20/3/23 

Buy here:

https://secondsightfilms.co.uk/products/martin-limited-edition-uhd-pre-order-available