Rating: 4/5
Hooptober 9.0 | 16/34 | 1970s regional US films 1/2
Martin boards a train and slips into the sleeper bathroom. He prepares an injection of narcotics and a razor blade. He sneaks back into the walkway and picks the lock to an overnight room.
In his imagination, a woman in lingerie stands ready to welcome him in her arms. He returns to reality. A woman wearing a sleep mask and bathrobe emerges from the bathroom.
He injects her, begging her not to scream as he tries to hold her down.
— It's all right. I'm always very careful with the needles. It won't hurt you. — What do you mean you're ALWAYS very careful? — It won't hurt you. It's just to help you sleep. Don't you see? It's important to me!
After some time passes, she reluctantly drifts off to sleep. He strips her naked and gets naked, too, laying on her and trying to put her limp arms around him. He pulls her on top of him, takes his razor, and cuts her arm from wrist to elbow, drinking the blood that pours out.
He performs some cleanup and knocks over a bottle of sleeping pills, so it looks like suicide.
At his train stop, Martin meets Cuda, who guides and joins him on a second train. Cuda brings Martin into his house, calling him “Nosferatu.” Martin has visions of Catholic prayers in Latin, exorcisms, and crosses.
First, I will save your soul. Then I will destroy you.
Cuda dramatically pulls a blanket off a mirror. Martin’s reflection glares at him. Martin tells Cuda that he is just his cousin, Martin. He removes the garlic from Cuda’s door and touches Cuda’s cross.
It isn't magic.
Martin will begin living with Cuda and Cuda’s granddaughter, Christine. Christine believes Martin is mentally ill but not a vampire. She chastises Cuda’s backward thinking for how it only reinforces Martin’s issues.
Martin finds loving support from Christine, who doesn’t know that he rapes and murders women.
He also gets support of a different kind from a radio DJ, whose show he calls to talk about being a vampire and “the sexy stuff” he does with women. The DJ calls him “The Count” and encourages him to live for himself.
Martin can shape his future based on who he runs to.
The movie shows a memory or fantasy through black and white film shot with arch Dutch angles. Sometimes, they are elaborate fantasies of playfully chasing a woman through a Gothic house. Other times, he sees mobs with torches and priests performing exorcisms on a younger Martin.
I don’t believe the movie intends you to believe that Martin is a vampire. What he does is a sickness that reflects how humans deal with our inner demons. We give it names — we try to get rid of it through therapy or medication, but in some ways that darkness is a part of being human.
You can be a Cuda, living in fear of it, a Martin, creating a narrative around it, or you can interrogate it and integrate it into your sense of self.
I am eagerly awaiting the black and white director’s cut restoration.