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".
痴迷行骗到走火入魔，失了挚爱也枉了余生。前一半是boring freak show，后一半渐入佳境。
故事因为是40年代的底子所以难免有种陈旧感，但亏得导演是陀螺才把它玩出来点新看头。演员阵容强是比较强，但你要说真要从中选出一个最佳(男主女主男配女配什么的)，还真是选不出来，大家似乎都差不多，都只是正常发挥。
不難看，但可能剪成幾集電視劇放上netflix效果更好
欢迎参观陀螺家后院（不是）。我现在理解很多人不喜欢陀螺，是因为他的电影过于政治正确/解读性低，但陀螺其实是属于类型片导演中作者性比较强的那一类，主要表现在他的观点是市场的/其次的辅料，那种阴暗浓郁的Cult味表达才是正餐，这点类似蒂姆波顿，但识别度没那么强。他的作品逻辑在于从一个小切入点（比如神话、人鱼、机器人或者pickled baby）开始编一个疯狂而浪漫的故事，然后塞很多私货，最后给一个合理且有人情味的结局，就这点来说，倒是觉得Nightmare Alley克制了点。最后，陀螺真的跟白人男性有仇吧hhh
字幕是机翻看得囫囵吞枣 整体观感又懒得再去找（或等）正确字幕重看了 几处有疑问的地方就这样吧 卡司强大有惊喜
这故事很陀螺，魔幻，暗黑，节奏偏慢但是点打得很好，一流的表演和制作提供了绝佳的代入感，观影体验不错。
挺喜欢马戏团的部分，有一种绵密的质感。两年后就变成狗血地摊文学了（精神分析？不过是“角色背景”这种最廉价的东西罢了)！不过还是很喜欢一些声音设计，比如手表的嘀嗒声，玻璃杯的嗡嗡作响等等。
原版没看过。属于蛇头虎尾，前半段一般般，有点拖沓，虽然很喜欢马戏团这个设置，后半段越来越好，结尾还是精彩的，也有陀螺的审美趣味在里面，但是惊喜不足，时长也有点太长了…
在哈登安排不良少年出场前，实在看不出这个老板有什么不妥之处。
所以电影的主题是想表达酒精害人吗？好的那我知道了，喝完这杯我就收手。
我以为我是来代餐的，哪知道这150分钟我是来看中年白男的人生起伏的。除了大魔王的一些高光瞬间之外这片没有什么拿得出手的。有这个时间我就应该重温《卡罗尔》而不是在电影院憋尿。
70，现在是流行花一半篇幅写个序章还是怎么？
没看过原版 但黑白版效果拔群 演员阵容也太惊人了 光影运用也是精妙 很多抽烟点燃火柴的光源 人物初登场头顶灯 面部全黑的打光 极为舒适 还有摊牌阶段的眼部打光 镜头方面 最开始Lilith和Stan室内那场戏 镜头语言超级细腻 Lilith的过肩镜头 显得Lilith更渺小 问到法官时 权力调转 Stan变成了过肩 影片开场就是以人还是野兽这个疑问开始 当人类想充当上帝 改变他人命运时 却忘记自己也在那宿命之中 当然源起于欲望 Stan的“Never”就像是想避免一切跟父亲的联系 然而他却没有逃脱自己的宿命【PCC - Oscar Nominees】
又臭又长 男主这个演技可以说几乎是没有 在魔王和威廉达福映衬下约等为零 可怜麻辣也只是来做个花瓶 毫无人物弧光 陀螺对丑东西到底是有什么迷恋
场景美轮美奂，故事乏善可陈。小红帽和小白兔的梗，冗长拖沓着实浪费了一众卡司。
一个不错的创意最后却拍成了一个冗长无趣的故事，很难想象这出自潘神迷宫的导演，玛拉还是这么美，勉强三星。
看完也没什么值得回味细究的东西，就是一个名导演的作品看完罢了，没啥惊喜
6/10。宛如一条悲观主义的夜路的[玉面情魔]，揭露了美国梦的腐朽内核：马戏团入口密布眼睛的圆圈通道和帐篷内盛放怪婴（以诺）的瓶子都暗示对谎言的自审和贪婪的恐怖力量，斯坦顿利用他人脆弱的情感骗取信任，他对女人和财富的追求变成泡影，自愿沦为以咬断鸡脖子来取悦顾客的被囚禁的怪人来停止堕落。命运与物品之间关系的探讨印刻了德尔托罗的魔法情结，莉莉丝包里的高级手枪代表她对男人的控制欲，雍容华贵的办公室配置的灯具、沙发都以曲线为主，墙上的罗夏墨迹，冷漠的大雪不时飘进暖色的房间，使原本没有鬼魂的真实场景被赋予了魔幻气质；斯坦顿摆弄父亲尸体、焚烧乡野独屋的出场，预示了毁灭是他唯一的出路，结尾他被锁在火车厢的鸡窝中，就像塔罗牌上的倒吊人；茉莉的秀是假的但电流穿过肉体的痛是真的，隐喻了利用真情的骗术能够摧毁人的生命。
不是我以为的那种故事。花了将近一个小时来铺垫太长了，哪怕看到后来发现了伏笔也并没有很惊喜的感觉。演员演技虽然出色，但角色之间的互动和交锋并不多，整个故事像是一场大型回忆。直到最后，才明白曾经众人眼中被视为异类的怪人原来是这么诞生的。
画面巨美，镜头巨好看，故事也凑合，但是…前后半段从哪方面来看都是完全割裂的啊！不过即使如此，我也为魔兔cp加一颗星。我太喜欢这种“干什么都没用最后还是走上宿命的失败”的主角了，大魔王这么解释这一现象：“What happened to you? ”“Life. Life happened to me.”
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