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".
前期把所有问题都暴露在观众面前 自私控制欲贫穷身份认同 最后仅用亲情化解所有有点偷懒 二女儿更讨喜
硬要雞蛋裡挑骨頭的話，覺得吵架戲碼都較為單一，銜接到結尾豁然開朗讓人有點買不了單，但絕對是4.5佳作。
比起愛，這一家人更懂什麼是恨。喜歡這部片細水長流的講述方式，到最後也沒有所謂的和解。看了導演的訪問，她說這部片沒有一場戲是虛構的，所以這種自傳式的情感故事衝擊力很大。話說大女兒在網咖裡聽的那首是周杰倫的什麼歌？（😢）
1.全篇色调过于阴沉，使人感觉太压抑
很真实，所以很入心。亲密关系是最难的，因为大家都take it for granted，也觉得可以太过随意。
这导演竟然是90年的，敢碰这样的题材可能跟她自己是留洋海归有关，好处是细节确实很细腻能戳到点，也许跟其自身经历有关吧，缺点就是你知道她想讲什么，却又每个部分都少了点什么，还是能力上差点火候
可看的内容好多，非典，身份认同，中西价值观对家庭关系的影响，生和死。设置多对身份的对应：不听话的马与不听话的姐姐，妈妈与外公的关系对应女儿与妈妈的关系，老师与父亲的体罚，等等。母女提前以淘耳朵代替观众以为的演讲来和解，很符合东方的审美价值。噢，林嘉欣到了演妈妈角色的年纪和气质了。
白马见于安德里亚阿诺德《鱼缸》、李霄峰《少女哪吒》……
期待太高了，内心毫无波动。不要白天投屏看🥲好暗好暗。
和《瀑布》讲实话不太一样，这片子是个单纯的家庭题材。主打怀旧牌（润美国、音乐、拨号上网、体罚、非典）的同时，电影在家庭争吵的细节上做的还不错，后半段的核心悬疑（到底阳性不阳性）设置的也是及格的。主要差在电影感的东西极少，另外要论家长里短的争吵，老一辈大陆电视剧拍的也很多，相比之下这部电影完全没有特别的地方…可看可不看吧。
若不是略显仓促的结尾，值得四星。小演员仿佛是牯岭街里的小明，浑然天成。
香蕉人很可怕，中二病也很可怕，香蕉加中二更是，唉
华语区青春家庭伦理片标配都是打孩子吗。。。文化冲突部分太符号化了，我倒宁愿看一家子好好吵架，不过well，不懂得好好吵架也算是华语区亲子关系集大成体现了
林嘉欣演的很好！自私的女儿也可信！母女间的矛盾也感同身受，但总好像缺点什么，故事有点架空，再多知其所以然……就更好啦！
*最后十分钟崩溃哭到无法呼吸
几个家庭生活的日常和争吵拍摄得很真实，感同身受，对于身份认同的危机很清晰，成人的挣扎似乎如迷雾般看不透
处在新疫情时代回看旧疫情时代，似乎什么都没有改变，曾经演叛逆少女现在演叛逆少女的母亲，林嘉欣还是那么美
感情表达很细腻，也有跟着落泪。不过好像只是在表达，意义并不深刻。结尾也有点突然结束，人物形象立的不是很饱满。（然后想想没有孩子应该不会这么愁吧，林嘉欣还是好美好美）
在新冠大流行的当下看当年SARS背景下的电影感觉很奇妙，这个台湾小家庭成为了中美文化对立冲突的最前线，孩子VS父母，个人VS家庭，随着SARS爆发母女的矛盾达到顶点，最大问题在于影片处心积虑营建的这个困境最后被轻描淡写地抹除了。
父母没有觉察到这一点，更没有把孩子当成和自己一样的人，想要用权威控制TA们，使用所有沟通方法中，最没有效，最伤人的方法，用情绪对抗情绪。
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