Martin
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Not many people outside the die-hard horror circles have even heard of George Romero’s vampire tale, Martin. Sometime between Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, he made a few movies that failed to connect with a large audience. This would be one of them.
However, that doesn’t mean it’s not great. In fact, it’s his favorite. We had a measured opinion of this one, and I think the result is one of our most interesting episodes yet. Have a listen!
Martin (1978)
Episode 75, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast
Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.
Craig: And I’m Craig.
Todd: Today’s horror film is the 1978 film Martin by George Romero. I think it’s a movie that not a lot of people remember, but it might be one of his best from a, from an artistic standpoint anyway. He he thinks it is, and a lot of people, a lot of critics might agree, even though it doesn’t have the excitement and blood soaked tendencies of his other zombie films. I had never seen this movie before. I had seen it on the video store shelves, had always been a little intrigued by it as a kid, but never intrigued enough to pick it up and watch it. And it’s only been later when, you know, you get to reading online about people and things about this little Phil Martin, and it just gets really good critical reviews. So Craig and I have had it on our list for a while to watch, and we decided to watch it this week.
Craig: If I’ve ever heard of this movie, I don’t remember hearing about it, and I had certainly never seen it. And so Todd, watching it for the first time was a whole new experience for me. And I literally, I found myself crunched for time and didn’t have time to look anything up about it or or anything. And so I was going in completely blind. I had no idea what it was about, so it was interesting. I don’t know. Yeah. I’ve heard, I guess, the same thing that you have heard that, Romero counts this as his personal favorite of his films that he’s made. And like you said, it it got pretty good technical reviews. But, I don’t know. It’s it’s an interesting movie for sure. It’s a little odd. I’ll be interested to see what you thought of it because because I don’t know. I mean, I just thought I mean, I just thought that it was really kind of bizarre frankly, but I like stuff like like that. It’s unique and different. It’s a take on the vampire genre, I guess. And after I watched it, I read some things and something that I read was that, Romero does hear with vampires what he has done with zombies before, which is make a movie about realistic people in strange, situations. But he I mean, Romero kinda defined the genre, the zombie genre, really, and here was his take on the vampire genre, and it was very different and certainly interesting.
Todd: Well, I would say that this movie is, more it’s it’s a character study, really. It’s not an action packed thriller. It is very much a drama that takes place about, and it’s also ambiguous throughout. Is this guy actually a vampire? Right. So I think I really like in this movie tonally to another movie we’ve seen, and that was I believe it was called Christmas Evil, which was very similar to this in that it was simply a character study of a serial killer. We got to see a little bit of his origins, we saw that he was disturbed, and we follow him around as he does his killings, but it’s a little more complicated than that because he seems a little conflicted. We we get into the mind of this person so much that we start to empathize and sympathize with them. And in a way that that movie really and then that movie also came from around the same time period. This movie was in 1978, I believe, when it was released. However, you can see it listed as 1977. I believe it had some screenings then. And in 1976, I believe, is when he shot it because, that’s actually the the date that appears in the credits at the end. And after his Night of the Living Dead debacle, he would never forget to put that copyright,
Craig: right, at
Todd: the end of of the movies, but I, you know, I think you have to be in the right mood to see this movie. You have to know what it is going in in order to enjoy it the most, and if you know that it’s a character study and you’re in for some drama, you might approach it without those certain expectations that you’re gonna see another George Romero film that’s more in line with everything else he’s done. But, I mean, I have to say I enjoyed this. I didn’t feel that it was that different from a lot of other films that I’ve seen in just in that it it’s subject matter. You know, it’s it’s slow. It’s definitely slow moving.
Craig: Mhmm.
Todd: And, again, it’s way more interested in showing us the mind of this man named Martin. And I mean, he’s a man, he’s he’s really a young man, almost a boy, it seems like. They’re trying to portray him at times as an adolescent, or at least as a young man who hasn’t really fully developed. He’s going through that period of difficulty, the hormone sexual interest that he can’t do anything about. It opens with a woman getting on a Craig, and, there’s a guy, and this is Martin, staring after her. Immediately, you feel that something sinister is is going is going to be going on here. They’re on a sleeper Craig, it’s, you know, it’s going at night, and, the woman goes to her room to go to sleep, and meanwhile, Martin, we follow him around as he very deliberately goes through, his stuff. He goes into a bathroom, he pulls out what’s like a little toolbox of his that has a needle and some drugs and things in it, and is loading this needle up with something in the bathroom. And and this is shot much like the rest of the movie is shot. It’s it’s very artsy. You get lots of close ups of the needle and of the the drugs. It’s really I’d say the whole movie feels a little claustrophobic in a way because Romero seems to favor close ups and medium shots way more than wide shots, and we skip a lot of establishing shots. You know, in most films, you have like a wide shot that starts off the scene or at least comes in at some point that just shows you where you are. Typically, then it moves into a medium shot to show you the characters and then into close ups when it’s important. Oftentimes in movies nowadays, the way the language works is we see close ups when when things are important. And in this movie, I’d say about 50% of the shots are close ups.
Craig: Right. Yeah. Which
Todd: gives it that art artsy feel, but, also, I think it’s quite frankly just Romero working with a budget. He didn’t have a lot of scenery to chew, and and so that’s that’s kind of I think working within those limitations has given us a more artistic looking film. But I’m I’m digressing here. He basically goes into her birth, by picking the lock in the door. He even has a set of lock picks. So you know this guy has done this before. He’s planned this out. Yep. And it’s interesting, as he opens the door or appears to open the door, we get this black and white, what we later learn is flashback footage. It’s in his mind what he kind of sees is going to happen, at least that’s what it appears to be at first, that when he opens the door, there’s gonna be this beautiful woman who turns towards him and smiles and almost in a seductive way. But when he opens actually opens the door and comes in, it’s empty. He just sees a mess in there. And then we get a different angle, and we see the woman coming out of her little bathroom area. And she’s absolutely not dressed up as he imagined, but she has kind of, like a face mask on, her hair tied up, and is clearly just in a robe getting ready for bed like normal. But then what follows, I think, is a pretty long and in many ways uncomfortable brutal scene here. The fact that it all takes place in this very claustrophobic area, I think, just adds to the, I would say the shock value, but also just the ickiness of
Craig: Yeah.
Todd: The movie. It it sets a tone of ickiness for the movie, don’t you think? It
Craig: yeah. Yeah. It does. And, like, I I felt that way through much of this movie. I mean, it feels you kinda feel like a voyeur or watching, some of this movie, and what you’re saying, you know, again, I say it all the time, you’re the technical guy, you know about shots and all that kind of stuff. It reminded me kind of of Maniac, the original. I haven’t, I haven’t seen the remake so I don’t know but, you’re just kinda, you’re just following this guy going through these motions and it’s it’s strange. Like, yeah, he okay. So he injects this woman with something. I have no idea what it, I mean, this is his, you know, this is his method. We find out. This is what he does. He injects her with something, and it’s supposed to knock her out. But whatever it is doesn’t take immediate effect. So he kind of has to subdue her while she is losing consciousness and that takes a while. And it is uncomfortable because she’s fighting back and she’s Tell me. Damn it. Why won’t you
Todd: say something to me? What the hell do you want? Come on, buddy. Come on. There’s someone here.
Craig: It’s alright. I’m always very careful with the needles. It won’t
Clip: hurt you.
Todd: You’re being always very careful.
Clip: It won’t hurt you.
Todd: It’s in that shot. It’s just to help you sleep. What was in this shot? Why do you want me to sleep? Why don’t you just take what you want and go? Understand. That is important. You may have done this.
Craig: Eventually, she passes out and he rapes her. I I mean, it’s I don’t know. We’ve talked about this before. Sexual violence in any movie, horror or otherwise, just makes me very uncomfortable. It’s such an uncomfortable thing. And, we, you know, we don’t see anything Todd and and it almost looks as though he’s trying to create something that’s that’s intimate, that’s that’s soft and kind. Like, he’s touching her gently and he’s moving her limbs around to caress him and to hug him and stuff. But again, I mean just the the idea that he’s doing that is is uncomfortable. And then he takes a razor blade and slits her wrists with it and drinks her blood. And then he he makes it look like a suicide basically is what he does, and he leaves her there. And so I didn’t really know what was going on. I didn’t know if this was just kind of some masochistic murderer or if this was a vampire thing going on. I mean, he very obviously drinks her blood. So, there’s something going on there. But, yeah, the whole thing and maybe it’s also just kind of the gritty nature of seventies film. I mean, you know, we’re watching this, and it’s not the clear, sharp focus that you see in film today. It has kind of a grittiness to it. I mean it almost kind of feels like you’re watching an old porn or a slash film or something like that and it’s uncomfortable. Plus, this guy, who plays Martin, his name’s John Amplis, and he’s been in other things. I didn’t really recognize him from anything. But he seems so not threatening. I mean, he he kind of seems like this quiet, outcast type of guy. And and I actually found his his performance in the beginning of the movie almost endearing because he he just seems kinda like a lost soul, I guess. But as the movie goes on, you really come to find that either he really is a vampire or he’s just a really, really disturbed guy, and it it would it’s it’s unsettling. His performance is unsettling.
Todd: It it is. It’s very unsettling. And you’re right. The whole movie’s unsettling. And this particular scene, I think, is unsettling, and I think you nailed it right there Because even as Martin is trying to make something more out of this, something sensual, the filmmaker Romero is shooting this like a love scene. We get Mhmm. You know, like, in shadow, he’s leaning in to kiss her, and she’s kind of laid out there. It is it is absolutely how a sensual love scene would be shot except for the fact that she’s not moving, and Mhmm. And her eyes are just stone cold open through it even, you know, with whatever sleep stuff he’s given her. It’s it’s it’s horrifying. And and you’re right. It it I think the seventies ish nature of the film has something to do with it. The the film stock is a little gritty. This was a very low budget film. You can tell that the lights and
Craig: Mhmm.
Todd: The lighting isn’t the greatest. And, also, the style of the filmography, it it just goes all over the place. At times, it’s like a Todd cam, you know, very smoothly working at times. The the, you know, the camera’s on a Todd, and we’re just getting kind of a static shot. At other times, it’s an unsteady, like, point of view kind of shots, and then close ups, it it moves through all of these so so quickly and so fluidly. And actually, fluidly isn’t the right Todd. The fact that it doesn’t move through the all of these things so fluidly, there isn’t a common language, I think, for the cinematography for this movie, and it it’s jarring. It’s jarring the whole time through. It almost makes it feel like an amateur movie, you know, something that Mhmm. You know, if you had a video camera in today’s age, people would run out and shoot, and this is the kind of film they would get. It it just goes all over the place. But it but I have to say, it doesn’t feel like an amateur a movie made by amateurs. I mean, the movie’s got a point. It’s it’s pretty well written. It’s pretty well acted, but it’s just gritty. It’s gritty, and it and it feels homemade in a way. And and I guess, like you said, it’s a little voyeuristic. Maybe that adds to the feel. I wouldn’t go so far as saying it has a documentary feel, but this is the kind of cinematic language that you see in documentaries. You know, it just bounces between all of these. So
Craig: Well, and I had read that well, first of all, I guess, Romero was really successful with Night of the Living Dead, and then the next two movies that he did had totally flopped, and and had lost money. He was in a he was not in a good place
Todd: financially and he had to kind of, seek
Craig: out help to get this movie made. And this movie seek out help to get this movie made. And this movie really didn’t make any money either. It wasn’t until he did Dawn of the Dead that he he started making money again. And I guess he he was kind of in debt to some people, and someone had suggested that he declare bankruptcy to kind of get rid of his debts. And and he wouldn’t do that because he didn’t feel like that was the right thing to do, leave all these people who had been supportive of him hanging. And so he didn’t, and when night or excuse me, when dawn of the dead did well he paid those people back. Kind of a non sequitur. What I was trying to get to was initially when he had planned this movie he had written the script about a vampire, an elderly, aged vampire who was trying to work and live in modern society. But I guess he saw this guy, John Amplis, on a on stage somewhere in a performance and he just was so taken by this guy that he rewrote the whole script to make it a younger vampire and, that’s what we end up with. He’s on this train, he’s going, I guess, we don’t even really get a lot of explanation for why, but he’s going to live with his cousin, an older guy named Cuda, Cuda, c u d a, I don’t know. He looks like Colonel Sanders. But he’s going to live with he’s going to live with this guy. And so when he gets off the train, this guy meets him and the guy’s kind of stoic, and he takes him back to his house. And as soon as they get in the house, the guy turns to him and says Nosferatu. Vampire. 1st, I will save your soul. Then I will destroy you. I will show you your room. Like, it’s it’s just it’s so weird. And he has these flashbacks throughout the course of the movie that you’ve already mentioned. These and they’re in black and white. And I actually I thought the flashbacks were beautiful. They were maybe my favorite part of the movie. But it flashes back and it seems like at some point, in his life, this guy has experienced an exorcism and even in modern day in Cutter’s house there are crosses hanging all over the walls, there’s garlic hung up on doors, But we see right away that none of these traditional things that usually deter vampires or affect vampires affect this guy. And I love the ambiguity of it. I mean, I was left at the end of the movie not knowing. I didn’t know if this guy really was a vampire or if he was just some crazy guy. He can go out in the Craig. Todd to hurt his eyes, like when he’s craving blood and he gets the tingles, that’s what he calls it, sometimes the sunlight affects his eyes. But he’s not affected by crosses. He’s not affected by garlic. And when we see these flashbacks of him or his cousin or whomever it was, trying to perform an exorcism on him. He just keeps saying things like there is no magic. There’s no such thing of magic. He even says that to Cutter, and he grabs a hunk of garlic and takes a bite out of it, he touches the cross to his face and he says it isn’t magic. So I don’t know. I mean, it’s a really interesting take on it. And frankly, I’m still left wondering. I don’t know. Okay. So Cutter, the uncle or cousin, excuse me, has a granddaughter who’s also living in the house, and her name is Christina, played by, Christine Forrest, who I believe was married to Romero either either at this time or at some point. The the cousin, Cutter, tells her this kid is a vampire. He was born in the old country in 18/92. He there were 9 cursed people in our family. Only 3 of them are still alive, and he’s one of them. And then Christina doesn’t believe any of this, but even she talks to Martin and Martin, she says, how old are you? And he says, I’m 84. And they make reference to this, the family curse or, the family shame. You know, there’s there’s this groundwork laid out where, okay, potentially he could be a vampire and the flashbacks all look like olden times. You know, like I don’t know when but it doesn’t look like modern day. You know, people that are carrying around candelabras and, they’re dressed, in a different fashion than contemporary fashion. So I think that the suggestion is maybe he’s not a vampire in the traditional sense and he says this over and over throughout the movie too. He says, It’s not like the movies. The movies get it all wrong. So maybe, you know, our modern day sensibility of what a vampire is, maybe he’s not that. But the impression that I got was that he is actually in some form, a vampire. I really like that ambiguity because even at the end, I was left wondering. I didn’t know.
Todd: Yeah. Me too. And you do also even kind of wonder if these flashbacks are true flashbacks or if they’re in his head. I don’t think that’s entirely clear either, but they do happen frequently enough and they parallel what’s happening, in modern times often enough that you get the sense that maybe they’re trying to say to us that, this is old hat, that he’s experienced this kind of thing multiple times, even though the flashbacks are really to to only a couple specific events that are just happening over and over again. Just the fact that they’re not multiple events, you know, that are happening in the past that we get these flashbacks to, they they don’t really deviate from, oh, what is it, kind of a woman in a castle or or mansion? Mhmm. A then, afterwards, he clearly has had sex with her, and then has bitten her, and then he’s being chased by a mob of people. And then what could or may not happen in sequence with this is an exorcism. It’s it’s like those 3 scenes that are shown over and over again. Right. And I think because it was simply the same 3 shot scenes, I even wondered if maybe some of this wasn’t just in his head as well, part of his it was his personal fantasy. The granddaughter doesn’t believe this. She thinks it’s Right. It’s ridiculous. But Cuda is so obsessive about this that you could imagine that a person who maybe grew up in this family and and had this family lore and was obsessive about it as he is could plant that idea in your head and would make you crazy. And that was Sure. You know, a direction I thought maybe this could be interpreted as well, because Cuda is dead serious about this. But Martin himself, it’s a little thread that they have early on in the movie, and then and then just sorta gets dropped. He’s kind of interested in magic. He has a a magic book, and I mean just like doing parlour tricks kinda magic. Right. He’s
Craig: got a slight of hand kinda stuff. Right?
Todd: Yeah. He’s got a magic book on the train that he’s reading. He brings it to the house. He’s reading it up at his room in the house, and even when he sits down for the first time to have breakfast or lunch or dinner with, with Kuda and, the granddaughter Christina, he does a little trick for them, and she’s kinda delighted by it. And that’s another one of those moments, as you said, where he emphasizes there is no real magic. There is no real magic. Mhmm. And so it can be interpreted as a way for him to come to terms with that. He’s trying to understand his condition, his situation. He’s explored the possibility of real magic. And anyone who’s going to do that is going to first go to magicians, and then they’re going to learn the tricks, and they’re going to realize it is all a trick. I mean, it’s a really complex character. It’s it’s neat just the little details like that that Romero has written into this script that makes this a pretty deep film, I think. It makes him a very well rounded character and makes him interesting from the get go. I mean, everything we’ve described is really just the first 15 minutes of a pretty slow moving movie.
Craig: Mhmm. Mhmm.
Todd: We’re introduced to a cousin, Arthur, who comes and goes. He’s played by Tom Savini. You can recognize him immediately. Tom Savini is never really Yeah. The best actor, but, he does pop in every now and then to these movies where he’s done the, the effects work for, or, you know, is associated with Romero and has been for a while. We get lots of close ups of toys and things where Martin is playing with some Todd, and and again, there are just so many close ups in this movie. You you wanna imbue every little thing with significance. You wanna think that everything Romero is showing us, he’s showing us for a purpose. I even saw these close ups of him playing with toys thinking that, you know, this kid is kind of a child at heart or at least is kind of regressing to that. Mhmm. And it which puts to me anyway, to me, even though he was played by what is clearly a guy at least in his twenties, I got the sense that Martin at heart was an adolescent. And part of that has to do with yeah. Right? And and and a lot of that also has to do with his lack of sexual development. His MO is to drug women and then have sex with them, and we start to get these narratives that come and go throughout the movie. And again, in a really clever way, it’s it’s really disjointing and confusing. You want he’s in the narratives, Martin is clearly talking to somebody, and you know initially who it is he’s talking to until later on, probably about midway through during the narratives. You you see him on the phone and you real oh, because he asked for a phone in his room, and it’s to call a radio station. He’s so looking for somebody to talk to that the only one he could speak to is it’s not even Christina. It’s gotta be outside of his family. He’s got no friends. It’s one of these anonymous radio talk show hosts. And so we get the idea that throughout this movie, he has become a regular, on call in
Craig: sometimes I think they’re really gonna catch me and hurt me or even kill me. Yeah. I’ve seen that in the movies. People trying to stop your kind. I’m pretty careful about not getting caught now. I’ve learned a lot of things. They have good tools, and they have the needles. Needles? It was really hard before the needles. What kind of needles? Count?
Todd: Doesn’t take him seriously, of course. Also feels like he’s speaking to a crazy person, but that is his sort of therapy. And it also serves as a nice little device to bring Martin’s point of view into the movie from time to time. We do kinda wanna know what Martin’s thinking, and it’s really skillful the way that Romero brings this in and brings it out. I had read that he actually had the whole movie narrated, but it turned out that the narrative was just strong enough, that he cut most of that out. But it was nice that he left a little bit of it in because it does provide us a little more insight into his character at the times when we need it the most. And the insight that I got throughout it was, this guy is is like an adolescent. He’s totally confused with the world. He doesn’t know how to relate to women. He’s scared of them, but he has these sexual urges, but he doesn’t know how to deal with them. He goes to a sex shop early in the movie. Mhmm. You know, there are a couple moments of him walking through I mean, this is filmed in Pittsburgh. It really doesn’t have a place associated with it, but it looks like a rundown factory Todd, actually. And and again, the movie does a great job of showing a sense of place. It just Feels like he’s living in this gritty place, this really depressing sort of bombed out city like Detroit Todd, you know, just everything is decaying and falling apart and Romero’s giving us these shots of of cars being crushed in the junkyard, and we hear from from Arthur that he’s a mechanic, but he can’t find work at a factory. And that almost immediately is cut with another shot of cars being crushed and hauled off to the junkyard. You know, it’s it’s it’s really great in the editing and the imagery that he’s able to give all this a sense of place in a very natural way.
Craig: Yeah. And I had read, that the original cut ran almost 3 hours, like 2 hours and 45 minutes. And thank Todd they cut it down because honestly I have to say that in the beginning of this movie I was I was really kind of endeared to the character not because he’s a likable character but just because he was so unique and interesting. And by the end I was thinking, oh my Todd is this over yet? Like it really felt like it was going on for a long time. And part of that is just because, you know, there’s as far as narrative is concerned, there’s not a whole lot of story. Like, I expected there to be more in terms of character development or action, but it it’s it’s really pretty simple. I mean, he, Cudda, owns like a general store. So Martin, does deliveries for him and stuff. And so he starts to kind of get introduced to different characters and and he’s kind of drawn to, it seems like, housewives. And, there’s there’s one sequence where he is stalking this housewife, this married woman, whose husband travels for business apparently, and he’s been stalking her enough that he knows that. So there’s a scene where her husband goes out of Todd, and he is stalking her. He buys a garage door opener at, like, a hardware
Todd: store. That’s awesome.
Craig: And can open her garage door and gets in her house. You know, it’s a pretty action packed sequence where, again, it’s all intercut with these flashbacks backs that are also very reminiscent of the scene. You know, some girl, in the flashback leading him off to bed or something like that. So he’s imagining all that. When he busts in on this housewife, he finds that she’s not alone. She’s with a man. She’s having an affair. And so his plans are kind of thrown off. It’s actually a fairly long sequence where the guy, he injects the guy, but like I said before, the injection doesn’t take immediate effect. It takes a while. And he plays this whole cat and mouse game with them in the house where he’s running around and and they’re chasing after him and trying to call the police and he’s interfering with that. I believe, if I remember correctly, he kills the guy and drinks his blood, but I don’t think that he kills the woman. No. I don’t remember exactly what happened with that. He gets involved with another housewife who clearly has interest in him, and she makes advances towards him, which initially he rejects. And he talks about that when he’s talking to this radio talk show host. When I see people together, they don’t talk. Not really. They don’t say what they mean. Right. Then they they have the other. They have the sexy stuff whenever they want it. I’ve been much too shy to ever do the sexy stuff. I mean, do it with someone who is awake. Someday maybe I’ll get to do it awake without the blood part. Just do it with somebody and then be together and talk all night. Eventually, he starts an affair with this this woman. He actually does get, you know, personally intimate with this woman. But you know, it’s just that. I mean the whole middle of the movie is just, I don’t know. I I I don’t even wanna say character development because it doesn’t even really seem like character development. It’s almost just kind of getting into the mind of this guy. I kind of wish that it had gone somewhere more. Like I w I mean, I guess to be fair, yes he starts to be able to have an individual intimate relationship with somebody and that’s different, that’s new. But beyond that it’s really just about him dealing with his impulses. And based on what we see in the movie, it just seems like he needs to feed every so often. And when he needs to do that, he stalks somebody for a while. He does his thing. He eats. Towards the end of the movie, he starts talking about how it’s getting more difficult for him. That he’s, having these urges, but he’s not satisfying them. And so he’s getting a little bit more sloppy. And that kind of leads, I guess, to what you would call, you know, the climax. But I hate to be critical because I know that, you know, this is one of but, if anything, as opposed to what we got, which was fine, but I was kinda like I said, by the end, I was like, alright, let’s wrap it up.
Todd: Yeah. I would agree. There isn’t a let’s say the journey is a very short one, and it doesn’t, it’s kind of, like, ends up back where it started, really. I would argue that there is a bit of development here. I would say that the fact that he is able to have this relationship with this woman, he he steps out to her. You know, he is kind of running away from her advances for a little while. But then at some point, when he comes over, she says
Craig: How about a little painting tomorrow? Zoe’s out of town again and only left the game room half finished. You want me here for sex, don’t you? I never really did it before. I was always too shy. But I decided I’d really like to do it with you.
Todd: The next shot is of the 2 of them together, like, she’s on him, but they’re both like asleep or quiet, like, they both just sort of, like, did it, but he didn’t bother to get out of her. They’re not laying together next to each other on the bed. They just kind of flopped down right where they were. You know? It’s just brief.
Craig: I know what you mean. It is a weird shot, but I don’t think that they weren’t asleep. They weren’t inanimate. I mean, I think that she was kind of stroking his back, but it was a weird shot just because it lingered for so long and it appeared to be post climax, but they were both just kind of lingering there. And he’s almost I don’t even know how to describe it. He’s kind of hunched, over her, but they’re still in an embrace. And it was a weird shot. I know exactly what you’re talking about. I thought it was weird too.
Todd: And then that’s immediately followed by her, you know, laying down the sofa. She’s crying. They have a little back and forth, and and he’s kind of getting dressed and and on his way out the door. And he seems a little bubblier, but he asked her, oh, you know, did I do something wrong? And, you know, what’s why are you crying? And she did a pretty good job with this, and I think this is well written. Again, it’s a little ambiguous, but then she he says, oh, I should have used one of those things, you know. Are you worried that we’re gonna have kids? And she said, no. I can’t have kids. And I think it’s meant to imply that that is part of her sadness. Yeah. But it’s just really kinda sad. It’s like even when he gets this moment with a a live awake woman, that he doesn’t kill, you know, afterwards, it just seemed like an empty act, like, between 2 damaged people. And so he breaches out, and he does this. So there’s, like, a little character development there, but it’s like it doesn’t get him anywhere. You know what I mean? It doesn’t ultimately this relationship is not gonna fulfill the deepest desires of his heart. Right? It’s just another damaged person.
Craig: Yep.
Todd: I would say it’s like a guy who’s on a treadmill. Right? As a vampire would probably be on a treadmill, you know, living the same life just day to day to day and never being able to escape it, never getting any older. He’s constantly reaching out, and we see him reaching out, and he’s trying to move forward, but he just can’t. It just isn’t working for him, and so it he doesn’t end up going anywhere. But it’s I guess, I think seeing him reach out was the interesting part to me. Seeing some development happen, but then, he’s beaten down and tries to live in modern day society movies that I’ve seen. If you’re if you kind of imagine what this what this life is like, this has to be kind of what it’s probably like most of the time. Really sad, really depressing, you’re not going anywhere, any attempt you make at a relationship is gonna end one way or another, And the only people that you’re really gonna be able to get close to are also damaged goods. And in a way that’s how people, I don’t know, as a man as an as a man who’s been through adolescence, I think we all kind of go through a phase like this where we feel this way. Whether we should feel this way or not, I think it’s just hormones and the process of growing up that we question everything. And, you know, we are exploring relationships and and everything’s kind of a big drama. But for this guy, the drama is real. Yeah. In a way, I felt like, it was a portrait of adolescence too, and that made it interesting. But did it make it a fast moving exciting movie? No.
Craig: No. And you know at the end he kind of talks about that more and he talks about on the radio of course which by the way I also thought was really kind of a strange. I can imagine something like that happening. I mean this guy is calling in to this radio show and he’s telling this radio host that he’s drugging women and raping them, and killing people. And I guess on some kind of sick level, it makes sense that the radio show would want to exploit that because, you know, they’re getting lots of calls, people are interested. At the same time, I kept thinking, God, you know, like wouldn’t anybody take this seriously? Wouldn’t anybody be be concerned that this guy was really doing this stuff? And and we never really get that. In fact, at the end, spoiler alert, he dies at the end. At the very end, over the credits, we hear all these people calling in. Yeah. That’s him. I like him. Go ahead. I wonder where the count is. I know he’s out there somewhere.
Todd: To call.
Craig: Alright. The count. Yes.
Todd: The count. We all wanna know what happened to the count. What do you think?
Craig: I gotta go back home with the Bob Barry. Actually, I’ll show you out there. What happened to Again, we said it over and over again. It it’s unsettling. It’s unsettling to think that I can imagine that happening even in 2017. Now of course in 2017, everybody’s wiretapped and you can trace anybody’s phone and all that stuff. And so that dynamic is not there, but it’s, it was a little bit disturbing.
Todd: And again, here is another person he’s reaching out to who’s not really going to be able to help him. He’s talking to himself, and this guy is as much laughing at him. He’s laughing at him, but not so so much as to turn him off so that he’ll stop calling. So just like a radio host would do. Right? Yeah. That that I agree with you. That is one of the holes in this, plot is that it’s pretty hard to believe that he’s actually going to be able to get away with these murders in the neighborhood, and be calling into this radio show and admitting to all of them at the same time. Another Yeah. Really clunky part of the plot, I think, and it’s probably what was cut out of that 2 hour 45 minute version, is more of the development of Christina and her frustrations and Arthur. It just kind of shoehorns in this brief meeting between CUDA and Arthur at the bar, where Arthur’s talking about how he’s a mechanic, and his life here sucks, and this town is dead. And Kuda’s, you know, saying we need young people like you in the town, but if you don’t wanna be here, get out. You know, we we don’t need you. And and again, it’s it’s sad because it’s kind of throwing in what really didn’t need to be thrown in. We got this idea about the town and stuff, but, Arthur’s gonna leave, and then Christina confronts Cuda in the next scene, and says that she’s leaving too, and she’s leaving with Arthur, and they just take off. So they’re both frustrated and upset. Maybe she’s mad at the uncle too. She thinks he’s a little loony, but I guess the general sense is that there’s nothing more in this town for them, and so they’re going. And so they just go, and everything’s pretty abrupt. Again, the movie has a very disjointed feel. It jumps so quickly through the time. It’s a little unclear sometimes what’s happening and why it’s happening. Is it happening because of the previous scene, because these two scenes are in sequence, or are we seeing something 2 weeks later, you know, that’s going on? Either part of that’s intentional, choice on Romero’s part to keep you on edge and keep you disoriented, or it might just be the fact that he had to cut his own movie so much. But, yeah, and and really the first truly violent death scene that we see, and I’m not saying that the other ones aren’t violent, but the first one where he’s not so cowardly about it, he’s got something in his hand and he’s beating somebody with it, is he just goes and beats on some bums, you know, with a big lead pipe. He’s, I guess, being pursued, or at least he feels like he’s being pursued. He breaks into a store for a change of clothes and that, you know, sets off the alarms in the store. And so the cops show up and there’s this this chase scene where he gets chased to a gang, like a gang hideout, and the cops are there, and so the gang starts to shoot out with the cops, and this is all intercut with the mob scene from his flashbacks. So I guess this is the point where you realize, okay, the movie’s gonna wrap up soon because we’re getting some action, and we’re seeing the tail end of the prototypical vampire or monster story where the mob starts to come after them. But again, it’s just him being sloppy. Why did he have to break into the store to get a change of clothes? And this guy’s a pretty careful dude. I just felt like he was just coming unhinged at this point, and maybe that’s what what what he was trying to say. It’s even intercut with some slaughterhouse footage of a chicken getting cut up, which was weird. That didn’t seem to relate directly to what was happening, and, it just gets even more disjointed as the as the film goes on toward the climax.
Craig: Yeah. I, I found that whole scene odd as well. You know? You’re right. I think that the point is just that he’s becoming unhinged. And he even says that, you know, when he’s talking to the radio guy, he says I guess I shouldn’t have friends. No. I was getting pretty mixed up. No. That’s right. You shouldn’t get involved. It’s it’s, it’s dangerous. Right? Right. You you forget. You make mistakes. Live for yourself. Whatever it takes. Right? Get through the night. Right, Count? Are you making fun of me? I’m with you, Count. I mean, you’re absolutely right. You’re alright, my man.
Todd: Well, I’m Alright.
Craig: I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I really don’t. And it just seems really strange. Like, that whole scene where he, breaks okay. So he kills those bums, like you said, which is out of character for him, and then he breaks into the store to change clothes. Now we’ve always seen him get cleaned up and change his clothes, but I felt the exact same way that you did. Why would he break the glass storefront of a store to get in there? Meanwhile, the alarm is going off and going off and going off and he’s just like sitting in there getting dressed, and the cops are coming and they come and they get there, and then like you said, he just conveniently happens upon this meeting of drug dealers or gangsters or something or whatever. The so the cops are diverted away from him because they’re having the shoot out with these drug dealers or whatever it is, it just seemed really bizarre. And I do think that it was just meant as a plot device to get us to the end because that leads right to the end. I also think that you’re right with the editing. I had the strong feeling that we lost a lot of the relationship between Martin and Christina.
Todd: Mhmm.
Craig: I think that that was supposed to be more fleshed out. I think that they were it just I expected that that would be the human connection that he would find, that might change things or shape things from for for him. And and you see that a little bit, but you’re right. Then eventually she just leaves and she’s just gone. You know, he says, You’re going away. People go away to forget their past lives. You won’t remember me. And she says, No, that’s not true. I promise. I’ll send you a letter telling you where I am. But he says in his radio narration, She never sent me a letter or I never got the letter. So we lose out kind of on that. And I think that from a story perspective, maybe we lost something there in the editing. I think maybe that relationship might have been more telling for the development of his character. But it’s just gone. I mean, she really ends up being a throwaway character. Her and Arthur both, their roles just really end up kind of being insignificant, unfortunately, because I really liked the lady that played Christina, and then I had hoped to see more development of her and Martin’s relationship, but we just don’t get it. And what we do end up getting, so we had already mentioned that he had this relationship with this married woman. And they had had what seemed like a pretty real relationship. I mean, again, like you said, both of them damaged, but they’re spending time together, they’re talking to one another, they’re being intimate, and and you can tell through all of that that she is in some way I don’t wanna say disturbed because that makes it sound like crazy. She’s not crazy. I think that she’s just depressed. She’s in a bad marriage. She’s having an affair with the grocery boy. Uh-huh. And, so we we don’t really get to see too much except for that he’s able to make a human connection. But eventually, he goes back to her house to meet with her, and he finds her dead in the bathtub. And that was a really kind of disturbing image too. I mean, she’s probably about 3 quarters submerged in the bathtub. She slit her wrist. There’s blood everywhere. It looks like maybe she’s drank or taken some pills or something, and her eyes are wide open, and and he sees her, and and, it’s it’s kind of a troubling image and that’s what eventually leads to what I thought was actually a really shocking ending. Not to say that I didn’t necessarily see it coming, but it came so quickly and so abruptly that I was really taking them back.
Todd: Yeah. It’s so abrupt particularly because the the next couple scenes is of him walking down the street in a parade, or there’s a parade going down the street. There’s a and and, you know, it’s just a band playing, and you hear him talking to the radio DJ and he’s even kind of saying, you know, things get better. I’m learning to deal with things a little bit more. And then the next shot, it’s a close-up on Arthur’s face, and he is asleep. And then it’s a close-up of his uncle, and so it looks like his uncle was talking to him while he’s asleep. Standing over there. Martin. Sorry. Yeah. His uncle is talking to Martin while he’s over, while he’s asleep. And, he says to him
Clip: I warned you, Martin. Nobody in the town, I said. Nobody in the town. I heard about missus Santini. You think I believe she killed herself? Do you really think I believe this? Your soul is damned. Nosferatu.
Todd: Boom. He just nails a stake right into his heart.
Craig: Stakes him? Yeah. I didn’t see it coming. I mean, it was it was really well shot, you know, kind of the cameras looking up at, the uncle, cousin, whatever he is, above. And I feel like maybe even at first we just hear his voice, like, in in blackness, and then we see him standing over. He’s got this huge wooden stake and, like, a great big mallet, and he just stakes him right through the heart. And blood gushes, and it splatters all over the room and it splatters all over Martin’s face, and Martin’s dead.
Todd: That’s it.
Craig: And, that’s that’s it. That’s the end of the movie. And again, you know, like I said, I felt that it maybe got a little bit long in this, you know, like the 3 quarter mark. I felt like it maybe got a little bit long. But that ending, I mean, that was, that was a shock. I, I, I didn’t see it coming. And when you’re seeing Martin laying there, eyes open and blood splattered across his face and dead, it really made me question, you know, I mean, he’s a bad guy. He rapes and kills people. He’s a bad guy. But, you almost feel for him, like this this violent bloody end. It’s just so disturbing. It it took me aback.
Todd: Yeah. Me too. And as as Romero is won’t to do, at least in his early days, you know, he continues the story a little bit past the credits. And, the credit sequence is going, and we’re hearing the radio host speaking, saying, you know, I wonder what happened to Martin, or I wonder what happened to our our vampire account. The same time, the camera’s zooming into this patch in the yard, where clearly, CUDA has buried him, in the corner of the garden, and he’s seeding that part of the garden as the the credits roll and the finally, it goes out. It’s really a very, very abrupt ending, as you said, and I agree with you. I I felt for him at that moment. I I mean, it’s tragic in a way because he was a tragic character. And Yes. Like you said, he was a bad guy, but he didn’t wanna be a bad guy. You felt like this was his life that he had no choice. And so, yeah, to to to go out like that in with no bang.
Craig: Right.
Todd: It’s really pretty sad. And so, you know, the movie, again, like you said, his character doesn’t really go anywhere. It’s it’s definitely a character study of this guy, and then turns out he’s not even important. He’s gonna die, and he’s gonna get buried in a lawn, and grass will grow over him, and that’s it. He’s fertilizer is all. And it it is just a it’s a sad thing. It’s bleak. It’s a very bleak film, and It is. And that’s what Romero does really well. Right? The end of the original Night of the Dead is is terribly bleak, and it’s also pretty abrupt, quite frankly. I liked it, though. And and, like, you know, you brought up Maniac before. This totally is probably closer to Maniac than it is to Christmas evil, but they all have really interesting characters that you feel degrees of sympathy for, but are sort of forced to live out their terribly depressing lives until they come to their ultimate conclusion, which just really isn’t anything special.
Craig: Right. Yeah. I I don’t know. I mean, this one’s a tricky one for me because I don’t know that I can necessarily say that I liked it. I appreciated it. I especially appreciated it in the first half, because I felt like the actors did a good job of getting me invested in their characters and and it was different. You know? We’ve seen a 1000000 vampire movies, and I like vampire movies, but this was different. It was kind of a different spin on things and it really kind of tied vampirism in general to kind of adolescence, you know, being different, being awkward, you know, not being able to function in the way that you or society deems as normal or accepted. And I appreciated that. In a sense, it reminded me a little bit, I guess, of, Ginger Snaps, which by the way we have to watch and soon. Oh, yeah. But you know, just kind of using vampirism more as a metaphor for social awkwardness or maybe even mental health struggles
Todd: Yeah. I was just gonna say that.
Craig: In a way that I hadn’t yeah. In a way that I hadn’t seen before, and I appreciate it on that level. I don’t know if I’d ever watch this movie again. I don’t know if it held my interest or in, you know, was entertaining enough for me to actually sit down and watch it again. But I’m glad to anybody who is a horror fan or especially if you’re a Romero fan, because he really, really got into the whole, zombie thing, and he’s good at it. But this is, it’s something different, and it’s interesting.
Todd: I think it it shows Romero at his best, quite honestly. He is a skilled filmmaker, and you wouldn’t know it from some of the movies. You know, some movies he he made because he had to, or on the cheap or he had interference or things. But this guy’s an artist, and this is the kind of movie you have to see to know that for sure. There’s a lot of care, a lot of time, a lot of thought that’s clearly gone into every shot and every edit in this movie. And the characters, except for the, you know, the the clunky parts that we really believe are just, you know, forced edits, you can tell that he he really cares about this Martin character. He’s made him very well rounded. He’s made him complex, and he’s managed to make him very sympathetic. If he hadn’t done that, this would be just a dumb movie, quite honestly. Yep. And, and but he did. And I think you’re right. I think that you can see some commentary here here also on mental illness and on a society that is ill equipped to deal with and give that person what they need. Mhmm.
Craig: Yeah. I I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but, Martin and Christina even have a conversation at one point where, she says, I you probably need help. First of all, she says several times throughout the course of the movie, I know that mental illness runs in our family, but she suggests that it’s actually the uncle, and those other religious fanatics that are the ones who are mentally ill and that perhaps they have damaged Martin, to the point where he is where he is now. So I I don’t think that that was unintentional.
Todd: Oh, it’s
Craig: nice. I do think that it was some commentary.
Todd: And it’s entirely possible that’s the case. I mean, we’ve talked about how ambiguous this is. You really don’t know, and that could be the fact, which makes him an even more tragic character because you get the sense that, you know, at the end of the day, even though everyone has to take responsibility for their actions, the way he is is not his fault.
Craig: Right. One way or another.
Todd: Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend. You can find us on iTunes and on Stitcher. You can also find us on our Facebook page. Please like us there. Share us there as well. Let us know your thoughts about this movie and any other films you’d like us to review in the future. Until that time, I’m Todd
Craig: And I’m Craig.
Todd: With 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.