| Product: |
Martin (DVD) |
| Date: |
29/03/08 (76 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: New spin on vampire movies
Disadvantages: A bit dated, drawn out scenes, grainy imagery
While George A. Romero is best known for delivering zombie movies, he frequently steps into new areas, back in 1977 he decided to take the traditional vampire thriller and give it a modern twist, the product of that project was the movie Martin.
Martin (John Amplas) is 84 years old, this is slightly deceptive however because Martin looks like a teenager. Martin is ill, he suffers from a disease that we might call vampirism. He cannot help himself, when he sees a pretty woman he just needs to drink her blood. In order to try and control himself Martin heads to Pittsburg to live with his cousin Tada Cuda, himself an old man; but one who has physically aged, due to the fact that unlike Martin he is not a vampire. Tada offers Martin as his nephew in the community, employing him in his shop to deliver meat to the neighbourhood. Despite Martin's best intentions however he finds his blood cravings difficult to come to terms with and is forced to return to his vampire habits. With Tada on his back, ostracising him Martin has only one release, a local radio phone in show, but a potential love interest may cause things to change; but for the better or worse?
Prior to releasing his best known movie Dawn Of The Dead, Martin got a muted release. In the UK its release was minimal, before the film disappeared into obscurity for over 15 years. In 1993 as part of BBC 2's Weird Night the movie was shown as a lost classic, and although it was not so hard to find in other countries the reaction to the screening was felt across the world prompting the movie to get a new found success. Had it not been for Weird Night, Martin may very well have stayed a muted title with limited a limited fan base across the world.
I cannot say that Martin is up to the usual standard of Romero's offerings; in fact it's a pretty lame horror offering in comparison. To some degree you could call Martin a vampire soap opera, because it spends most of the movie trying to show Martin living a normal life. I can't help but think there is something almost prophet like about Romero, because he handles the subject of vampirism in a not dissimilar fashion to the disease AIDS, though obviously this was prior to the days of AIDS, vampirism is dealt with more as a matter of disease rather than something bred in, or passed on from one generation to the other.
Martin as a vampire lacks the usual convention, opting rather than to head straight for the traditional neck plunge and subsequent sucking of blood to engage in a ritual. First Martin selects his prey, once selected he might stalk that prey for several weeks. His attack is by the form of an injection, he puts his victims to sleep. While asleep he has sex with them, before finally severing an artery and drinking their blood. They say that those in real life who profess to be vampires adopt similar practises, though with the result of mutual blood sharing and no death. So to this level Romero handles the subject in a very modern and cutting edge manner, an admirable trait he has continued through his entire career. A very new generation of vampire, Martin does not sleep by day and live by night, he can happily live through both, though his sleeping is deep.
The movie looks at times like a early 1980's music video, I say this because of the flashbacks Martin experiences, he reflects back to an earlier time where he chased his prey, or was part of an attempted exorcism, these flashbacks are delivered in a very atmospheric black and white format. Again, almost like prophecy this format was not really picked up until five or six years later, and is now commonly seen in music videos trying to tell a story.
Martin is quite a sombre piece; it's very atmospheric, incredibly chilling in its appearance even despite the fact that the movie offers little in the way of horror for hardcore horror fans. There are vast expanses of the movie where Martin is just acting like a weird teen; there is no death during this time, no sign of vampirism. When Martin does attack the attacks are long and prolonged (though not bloody or scary) instead it's usually a sort of cat and mouse situation, in which Martin stalks and attacks his prey. One such incident lasting approximately 15 minutes.
In the movies central piece, Martin finds a relationship as close to love as he is ever likely to find and this is a charming but sober relationship that you kind of realise has nowhere to go.
Back in 1993 Martin had a lot of impact for me, however in a recent viewing despite its atmosphere it almost seemed like a different movie. Martin will find little acceptance in this day and age, although real horror fans will enjoy it.
Even preserved the movie is very grainy in its imagery, the colours are incredibly pale, and occasionally there are images where the picture literally disintegrates due to poor care.
Special Features:-
The original trailer offers an incredibly dark but dated perspective of the movie.
The TV spot is much more timeless with Martin actor John Amplas sat on a wodden set of stairs talking directly into the camera, occasionally intercut with scenes of action.
The biography is one taken from a German TV channel and covers Romero's life from birth to the filming of Dawn Of The Dead, which kind of went hand in hand with Martin. The documentary is in German with English subtitles.
Finally there are a couple of radio spots used to promote the movie on radio back in 1977.
There are other versions of the DVD released in the UK the other is a double set that features an audio commentary, making of documentary, and notes on George Romero. It features all the extras as the DVD I have reviewed except the German documentary.
The one disc DVD is still available in some places though deleted for around £4.99; while the two disc version is available from play.com priced £7.99.
Spencer Hawken 03/08
Summary: Romero looks at a very different style of vampire movie
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