Martin - Will's Review

A tough one to review this week, as I can see what the filmmakers were trying to do, and it was an interesting idea, but the end result seems to be something that's far easier to appreciate, than to actually enjoy. 

Martin appears to all the world to be a shy young man in his early 20's, in reality, he is a killer, who drugs women, cuts them, and drinks their blood; we know for sure that Martin does these thing, we see it happen in one of the movies first scenes. 

While we are sure of what Martin does, less certain is what he <i>is</i>... Most of Martins family (and even Martin himself> believe he is an 80+ year old vampire vampire; whether this is true, a group delusion in response to murderace tendencies, or even a family superstition which is the cause of his mental state and murdorous behaviour is never clear, and forms the bulk of the movies interest. 

I enjoyed the portrayal of Martin as a shy, oddly disquieting, character, but (think the paper thin story) it would have been better suited to a one hour short film than an almost two hour feature. 

Savini takes credit for special effects, but I'm really not sure why he was hired for the job, as there's little in the way of effects to tax eve a novice SFX student. 

It's the kind of movie I cani magine the type of film I can imagine someone watching for fun, in their lesure time.  

That said, the rest of the internet seems to have nothing but nice things to say about the film, so  what do I know?

Martin (1978) Review - Lisa's Review

I've had a veritable plethora of emotions surrounding this movie.  First off, I read the title and the year and was resigned that we were back to the old days of dated, old rubbish.  I looked a bit closer and saw it was a Romero movie.  It also has a part for Tom Savini, which seems to be a given in Romero movies.  I thought it was maybe a good omen as most other movies which have similar statistics were quite good.

After I watched the movie I had a look at some reviews to see how my viewpoint rated.  Seems like I was watching something entirely different than the vast majority of reviewers.  I read everything from "It's my favourite vampire movie" to "A wonderful modern day vampire story" to "One of Romeros best".

So I come right out and say it, I thought this movie was terrible.  The lead actor who played Martin (John Amplas) was repugnant in his attitude, expressions, way he carried himself... he just felt repellant to me.  Surely this character should have had some kind of sexual pull on females given his role in the movie.

Our basic premise centers around Martin drugging young women and either slicing them with razors and drinking their blood (which is clearly portrayed as a sexual thing) or raping them.  Where the comparison to classic vampires is here, I have no idea.  The movie, to me just seemed like a poorly made excuse to show some young attractive flesh and a bit of blood.

I found the storyline lacking and the other actors in the farce to be laughable, especially a male relative of his who is convinced he is evil, a vampire who can be repelled by garlic, crucifixes and holy water.

Martin goes through the movie doing much of the same until he finally relents to the advances of a bored middle-aged housewife.  Yawn.....

Some may say the ending is a bit of a surprise, but to be honest, following the usual direction of these kind of movies, I saw it coming a mile off.

So in short, I am definately not a fan of this movie.  In actual fact, I would advise anyone to avoid it.  Maybe had Martin been cast as someone else and had he been a bit older, it would have been palatable, but in its current state - No Thankyou.

Week 135 - Martin (1976)

Reviews / Author Comments due: 21/12//2013

Position on TimeOut list: 87

More Info: Wikipedia, IMDB

DVD: Link

TRAILER: