Director: George A Romero
Starring: John Amplas, Lincoln Maazel, Christine Forrest
31 Days of Horror continues with this review by A.D. Barker. Send me your horror reviews.
The name George A. Romero casts a long shadow over modern horror. His first movie, 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, could very well be one of the most influential and important horror movies of the 20th Century. You don’t have to necessarily dig the flick to understand that the horror genre took a huge U-turn when Night came out. Its impact paved the way for the gritty, visceral, get-your-hands-dirty filmmaking of the 1970s and the D.I.Y independent spirit that remains prevalent to this day; regardless of genre.
Romero’s first sequel to Night, a decade later, was the immortal Dawn of the Dead. There is probably nothing more that can be written about that flick, other than it remains to this day one of the most important films in this author’s life.
Without question, Romero is a legendary filmmaker, and yes, the aforementioned films are everything and more, but in between these two classics, Big George went on a somewhat haphazard and uneven filmmaking journey.
Check out the rare There’s Always Vanilla from 1971, or Jack’s Wife a.k.a Season of the Witch from the year after, or even the toxic-waste nightmare The Crazies from ‘73 recently remade of course), and you’ll see a filmmaker feeling around some of the themes and ideas that will come into sharper focus later in his career. Romero also made several Sporting Documentaries, purely for the green, around the mid-70s, until he finally got back to making features in 1977.
His first film out of the starting blocks is the film we are here to talk about tonight, the post-modern vampire satire, Martin. I say post-modern (bit of a bullshit phrase I’m not that fond of) because this isn’t any ordinary vampire flick. The eponymous Martin claims he is an eighty-four-year old bloodsucker from the old world. But instead of fangs, garlic, crosses, and all that clichéd vamp-lore, Martin Madahas has some very new world methods of catching his prey.
Hypodermic needles and razor blades are his weapons of choice. These syringes, filled with sodium pentothal, knocks out his victims, leaving them limp and dormant for Martin to indulge in his wicked pleasures. The razor blades slice open the victim’s veins, from which he drinks like an eager child.
Martin is not your normal teenager.
Martin opens with an extremely disturbing sequence on board a train. His bloodlust raging, the young nosferatu sneaks into a woman’s sleeping compartment while she is showering, then lies in wait for her. His needle at the ready, the woman exits the bathroom only to find the hungry looking teenager standing in a darkened corner. The train rumbles onwards.
Martin pins her to the bed, but her struggles and thrashings trouble him. He tells her that it’s alright, that it’s all going to be okay; and this is where the scene becomes very disturbing. Martin’s soothing voice and the tenderness with which he treats his victim is difficult to watch, let alone comprehend. The woman’s struggling subsides as she almost, seemingly allows him to do his bidding.
His bidding, it seems, is to inject her into unconsciousness, then take a razor blade to her wrist, slice it open, and then feverishly drink her blood. And all this before the opening credits!
Martin has been sent to live with a distant relative, seemingly against his will. He gets off the train only to greeted by an old man wearing a splendid white suit. This is Tata Cuda, brilliantly played by Lincoln Maazel, who bizarrely never acted in another film. Without even so much as a ‘Hello’, or any sign of acknowledgement at all, Tata leads Martin through the near derelict backstreets of Romero’s beloved Pittsburgh. The photography within this section of the film is beautifully shot, particularly a wide shot of Martin and Tata standing on opposite sides of the train tracks. The film was shot by Michael Gornick, who went onto shoot several films for George, including Dawn and the brilliantly mad, Knightriders, and direct Creepshow 2.
Old Tata Cuda has a rabid faith in the Lord and a deeply rooted superstition in the creatures of the night. He believes Martin to be a vampire, without question, and tells the boy that if one person dies in his town, Tata will destroy him. He becomes Martin’s nemesis; his Van Helsing.
Romero intercuts the film with glimpses into Martin’s fantasy world, or in some cases, possibly his memories. These grainy black & white sections of the film show Martin as a courageous, lusted-after hero of the night, in striking contrast to the vulnerable, tortured misfit he presents in the physical world. Here Romero plays with the clichés of the vampire myth; the stereotypical images seen in countless other films. It maybe suggests that Martin has indeed learnt all his vampire lore from the same old Lugosi movies we have. Romero never gives us a straight answer to the authenticity of Martin’s vampirism.
Tata’s granddaughter Christina (played by Romero’s future wife, Christine Forrest) has to listen to her Grandfather’s ravings about Martin’s wickedness, but in this, she just feels sorry for the young boy. She befriends Martin, seeing something in her own lonely life in the teenager. Oh, and look out for Christine’s boyfriend: Horror fans will recognise the young ruffian as future make-up F/X legend, and Romero right-hand-man, Tom Savini, in his first movie for Big George. And while we’re on the subject, also look out for the director’s own cameo as the pissed-up, Exorcist-loving Father Howard. He seems to be having a great time.
Martin is the kind of film that could have only been made in the 70s – bleak, surreal, sometimes darkly funny, and utterly uncompromising. In many ways it is Romero’s most accomplished film. His later films seem to have become a testimony to the filmmaker’s lifelong battle with moneymen and studios, censors and one too many compromises. See the fun, but ultimately flawed later ‘Dead’ sequels, Day and Land of the Dead, and the bewildering, Diary of the Dead and lacklustre Survival of the Dead.
But here, with Martin, Romero is at his most pure. It is a beautifully made movie, but it isn’t just old George’s finest hour. No sir. I have to make special mention here to Martin himself.
John Amplas was just twenty-years old when he took the complex role of a teenager who believes he is an eighty-year-old vampire. Amplas’ performance is nothing short of incredible. There are A-list actors who have been working in Hollywood for decades who have never even come close to accomplishing what Amplas does here. He is mesmerising. Amplas worked for Romero again several times, including Creepshow, Knightriders and Dawn & Day of the Dead (he was the casting director on Dawn), but nothing in his cinematic career ever came close to his role as Martin. He went onto be a founding member of the Pittsburgh Playhouse Repertory Company, and won acclaim in stage productions of David Mamet’s “Glengarry Glen Ross” and for directing “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”. He now teaches acting and continues with his stage work, but I’ve always thought that if more people had seen Martin, his career may have taken a different path. For me, he had the makings of a star.
Martin is a great movie, and a unique twist on the vampire genre, and pretty much as far away from the Stephenie Meyer school of bloodsuckers as you can get.
If you haven’t seen Martin, I urge you to check it out this Halloween!
