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".
被工作扰伤了感情，在风雨中一路奔向影院，落坐的那一刻，我体会到了Soul所说的生命平和的那一道光
随着年龄的增长，我对生存环境对一切的怨与恨逐渐转变成了对我活着到底有什么意义的思考。生活常常让我清醒地意识到我的生存欲望低的可怕。 很巧合的是，前两天看的一本小说里提到了红月，就突然想起当年还是学生的我大半夜跑到小公园里独自赏月的事，那一刻我突然意识到我原来还这么有生活情趣这么有火花。也许就像那片落叶之于22。可这不是答案，那只是一瞬间罢了。
在这部电影里面，以对话的形式向观众表达了“生活的意义”，还有“人生的目的”，太直白了，而且没有新意（或者直接点说“老套”？）╮（╯＿╰）╭
“生命的火花不是目标，而是对生活的热情。”2021年想安利给身边朋友的第一部片子，好好活着，享受当下的每一分钟。
这是一个钢琴老师和没有名字的22号的故事，令人想起1900。
进天堂的设定和 mindgame 有点像。但是人生道理就有点二元对立了。
题外话：22是不是很大概率会投胎到中国/亚洲啊！（要拿到hard模式人间体验卡了）发现男主Joe是杰米·福克斯配音的，他本身也是歌手/钢琴家，还演过雷·查尔斯传记片，请他配超合适～
设定很有趣，沉浸在心流里就会进入另一个zone（甚至忽视生活中其他可贵的东西？），而执念太深就会迷失。生活本生就是生活的意义，重拾对生活的触觉是消解抑郁的方法之一。Been there, done that. 其中Ocean VS Water的说法不是第一次听到，但更有感触了，大概是老了。和昨天看的电影比起来，这才是it’s a wonderful life啊…Jazz加一星！
皮克斯拿手好戲是把生死大事萌化成後勁十足的反思而非說教，生命中哪有這麼多的高光時刻，往往期待已久的目標實現的瞬間不過是精鹽一粒融入海水般無聲無息，徒留某種儀式感取悅自我和周邊。所以，不會有什麼重來一次，Carpe diem！每個當下，每種風景，每口滋味，每位趣靈魂，都值得用力擁抱，我問心無愧。【WandaBB】
太适合在这个功利的时代看了，你以为你的目标是火花，其实平凡的生活才是！
你明知道他在说教，在给你熬并不高明的鸡汤，但是呢，丧丧的我看这个还是感觉很治愈。为什么人生一定要有目标，为什么什么事情都要有意义呢。庆祝无意义。
据说，看完这部电影，会给人带来一种看过心理医生的舒畅感。钢琴老师意外的在天堂邂逅了没有 “火花” 的22号灵魂，火花是灵魂的基本素养之一。火花不是人生目标，当你想要感受生活的那一刻，火花其就已经被点燃。就像电影里22号灵魂所说的那样：「或许我的 “火花” 是看天空，或者走路而已。」谁跟你说 “火花” 就必须是一个灵魂的 “人生目标” ？人活着的意义，并不是人生有一个清晰的目标，而是需要去感受生命带来细枝末节的快乐。我非常喜欢那个关于鱼的寓言故事，说有一只年轻的鱼一直在寻找一种叫 “海洋” 的东西，年长的鱼告诉它：你现在就在海洋里啦。年轻的鱼回答说：我只是在水里而已，我想要的是海洋。梦想成为爵士音乐他，一心盼着美梦成真的那一瞬间，忽略了沿途的风景——每一条鱼都活在水里。浩瀚无边的海洋，或许并不在远方。
被刷了一年的爱国片，现在终于有个人拍给人看的电影了
摒弃了花里胡哨色彩斑斓的游乐园式审美，仅用光晕与线条就描绘出更具想象力的生之来处，让人看到现代动画的更多可能。
皮克斯的动画，依旧温暖人心。我们要找的不是目标，不是意义，只是热爱。不过整体完成度和画面比寻梦环游记差了点，后半段基本猜得到剧情，没有惊喜。
为什么哭的这么惨，因为我就像22那么古怪，也没擅长的东西和人生目标，最大的爱好是看天看树看路人。局外人感觉这种生活没意义，身在其中时发现也挺不错。
感谢皮克斯在这样一年里能做出这部电影。不夸张的说，看这部电影前一天晚上睡前我躺在床上，想到人生未来的一些可能会发生的事情充满了恐惧。谢谢这部电影在某种程度上治愈了我那些由于今年一年的封闭而产生的负面情绪。生活是美好的吧，22号的spark，gardener再音乐中对所有温馨瞬间的回忆，后劲都很大。注意到22号最后飞到四川方向去了，猜测她会成为一个熊猫饲养员。
皮克斯在年底给成年人的一点点安慰。
你明知道他在说教，在给你熬并不高明的鸡汤，但是呢，丧丧的我看这个还是感觉很治愈。为什么人生一定要有目标，为什么什么事情都要有意义呢。庆祝无意义。
本来以为是一部普通的励志片，告诉我们如何找到人生的意义。结果，他告诉我们，人生不需要执着于什么意义，而应该活在当下，每一个时刻都是你的spark。不需要追求梦想中的什么，觉得到了那一天，我的人生才开始。其实我们的人生已经开始了，我们已经可以好好享受它了。
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