Film / Martin (1977)

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Martin is an American horror film directed by George A. Romero from September 1977. It's probably Romero's most poetic and melancholic movie, as well as his personal favorite among his filmography.

A notable modern, skeptical, and unusually laid-back take on the Vampire myth and the lore and tropes commonly associated with it, the story centers on the titular character (John Amplas), who is convinced he is a vampire and moves with his cousin, Cuda (Lincoln Maazel), who is also convinced of this fact. He is clearly a serial killer and rapist; he murders women to drink their blood. But is he really a vampire, or is it all in his and Cuda's minds?

Not to be confused with the 1990s Martin Lawrence sitcom.

This movie features examples of:

• Actually Not a Vampire: Martin is convinced he is a vampire. It's left ambiguous as to whether or not he really is a vampire, but only Martin and his uncle believe in his vampirism, and there aren't any specific signs of his being supernatural that are explicitly shown.
• Affably Evil: Martin is very personable and dorky, but he's also a murderous serial rapist and probably insane.
• Bath Suicide: Abby slashes her wrists in a bathtub.
• Character Title: Martin is the main character of the movie.
• Creator Cameo: George A. Romero appears as a priest, and the make-up artist of the film, Tom Savini, appears as Christina's boyfriend.
• Daywalking Vampire: The movie is about a vampire (maybe) who doesn't seem at all concerned about daylight, and in fact defies most vampire tropes.
• Death by Irony: Cuda murders Martin over one of the few deaths Martin didn't cause.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Martin's Imagine Spots of his victims portray them as romantic The '30s Vampires Are Sex Gods film victims. Returning to reality shows the exact opposite.
• Disposing of a Body: Martin makes one look like a suicide, buries another. Cuda buries Martin in his backyard.
• Downer Ending: Cuda blames Martin for his friend's death, which was actually a suicide, stakes him while he sleeps and buries him in the garden. Downplayed, because whether or not Martin was a real vampire, he did commit several murders.
• Driven to Suicide: The woman that Martin befriends, Abby, kills herself in a bathtub. Cuda finds out and murders Martin for it, the only death in the film he wasn't responsible for.
• Gaslighting: It's unclear where the idea that Martin is a vampire comes from, but whatever it is, it's strongly implied Martin has been told many, many times by Cuda and the rest of their family that he is one.
• Gorn: Martin's staking is one of the goriest parts of an already unpleasant and rather remorselessly violent film.
• Hereditary Curse: Cuda claims that Martin's vampirism is the result of a family curse that goes back generations. While going through a family album, he points out several other relatives who allegedly had the curse, some of whom even took their own lives.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The entire theme of the film. Cuda believes that Martin is a vampire, Martin himself believes there's no such thing, but it's impossible to say for sure given that both of them have a vested interest in believing this. At the very least, if Martin is a vampire, he doesn't follow most of the typical rules of the folklore.
  Martin: [to Cuda] There is no magic.
• Monster Misogyny: Martin's victims are almost all women, and the only man he gets is by accident.
• Never Suicide: Martin leaves several razor blades and drugs around the body of his first victim, and places her in a position that makes it look like she took her own life.
• Not What It Looks Like: A bizarre variation. When Martin breaks in on one of the victims he's been stalking, he finds she's there with a man — and not her husband. The man invokes the trope, and in a truly chilling moment, the woman Martin has been stalking exclaims, "I DON'T KNOW WHO HE IS!"
• Obfuscating Disability: Martin pretends to be deaf in order to "collect money" for his disability. But in secret uses this moment to scope out the house when the people are getting their purse.
• Older Than They Look: Martin, who looks like a young man, claims that he's 84.
• One-Word Title: Martin.
• Our Vampires Are Different: They probably don't even exist. And if they do, they don't have any traditional weaknesses besides stakes to the heart, or powers. Sunlight appears to hurt their eyes, and it appears to be heriditary. Blood is required for them to keep functioning, and Martin, apparently, is eighty years old, despite looking like a teenager.
• Schrödinger's Gun: Romero decided for purposes of making the film that Martin is not a vampire, but deliberately left things ambiguous enough that the viewer could see it the other way.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: Caroline admits that she's going away with a man who's obviously wrong for her just to get away from Cuda.
• Serial Killer: What Martin is indisputably, as he mainly targets and murders several women.
• Tortured Monster: Martin. Whether he's a vampire or just nuts, it's clear he doesn't enjoy it.
• Troll: At one point, Martin lunges at Cuda wearing a vampire cloak and fake fangs, then mocks him for thinking vampires are real.
• Vampire Bites Suck: Played with; the "vampire", Martin, is a demented young man. He doesn't bite his victims — just slashes their arms open with razor blades.
• Vampires Hate Garlic: Cuda employs this. Martin shows how it doesn't work on him, as he bites down on a clove.
• Vampire Vannabe: The premise of the film. The trope is played with, however, because Martin's "vampirism" is a sexual fetish as well as a form of Domestic Abuse. Vampirism is never treated as supernatural, unlike a lot of other movies. Martin's older-looking cousin has convinced him that he's a vampire, and kills him at the end.