George A. Romero was a filmmaker mostly associated with defining zombie films and launched a worldwide obsession with the walking dead that has lasted since his groundbreaking film The Night of the Living Dead and its innumerable sequels. However, while he may be best known for his work with this newly-minted undead, Romero’s finest moment didn’t involve them at all, but rather saw him venturing into different territory while remaining within the realm of horror. Martin is an unconventional film – Romero takes elements of traditional horror films and infuses them into a more contemporary setting, applying them to a modern framework from which he is able to make some terrific social commentary, and question the boundaries between what is real and what is fiction. With this film, Romero portrayed a sense of maturity that was missing from his later films that may have been entertaining, but lacked the finesse of his earlier works, with Martin being the crowning glory in his long and storied career that saw him become one of the most fascinating horror auteurs, capable of scaring us but also provoking some serious thought. Horror films often separate themselves from the more troubling parts of reality, and Romero, to his credit, lent his films a sense of gritty realism that would be oft-repeated by his admirers, but never with the same compelling heart and brilliant sense of both narrative and visual style.

Martin (John Amplas) is a young man who has just suffered a loss that has left him without any direct family. His last resort is to travel across the country to a small town called Braddock, located squarely within working-class Pennsylvania, where he is to stay at the home of his great-uncle, Cuda (Lincoln Maazel), a devoutly Catholic man who is the only one who knows the circumstances that found his long-lost relative coming into his life, and very soon asserts his control over his new resident, putting him to work at his deli and setting strict rules towards what our protagonist is allowed to do, and what activities are forbidden. Martin is an ordinary young man of the 1970s – he enjoys music, he has a strong virility (but a crippling fear of intimacy) and enjoys the company of others who share his interests, including his cousin, Christina (Christine Forrest), who is taken by the mysterious but genial new visitor to their home. The only thing that differentiates Martin from the other inhabitants of the town is that he is a vampire – or so it would seem. The descendant of a long line of the blood-lusting undead, Martin earns nourishment from seducing women and drinking their blood, but not before drugging them to the point of unconsciousness.

John Amplas really impressed me in this film. Making his acting debut, he plays Martin with a blend of volatile insecurity and quiet confidence, making him far more than just a one-dimensional vampire character. The film focuses on Martin moving to a new town and interacting with a group of people he has never met before, in a new environment completely foreign to him. It is noted consistently throughout that he has moved from Indianapolis, a large city, to the small and intimate Braddock, where there is nowhere to hide, and everyone knows everyone, making news of Martin and his secretive nature the talk of the town, earning him just as many detractors as admirers. It is a difficult role, but Amplas did exceptionally well in creating an interpretation of a character who is supposed to be likeable but sinister in equal measure. Lincoln Maazel is also very good as Martin’s devoutly religious great-uncle who does his best to quash Martin’s true nature and to suppress his vampiric urges. Unfortunately, most of the film being focused on Martin causes the character of Cuda (and various other supporting players) to be underdeveloped, and while he is certainly still very compelling, more could’ve been done with the character. Yet, for a small independent horror film, Martin is certainly well-acted, and the smaller roles by obscure performers (rather than recognizable stars) lend this film an even more gritty and naturalistic atmosphere, which benefits it greatly.

There are two works that I think bear remarkable relevance to Martin, one from the world of literature, the other from academia. An Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson tells the story of the metaphysical journeys of a young man named Geryon, who goes in search of himself and comes to terms with his own monstrosity through finding himself lost in an unforgiving world. The other is “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, a fascinating piece of academic writing that succinctly looks at the subfield of “monster theory”, proposing seven tenets of monstrosity, defining the nature of being a monster. As odd as it is, I’m going to mention some of these concepts here, because no cinematic work has seemingly been able to represent these particular theses as much as Martin. The primary underlying concept in the work is that Martin, like any “monster”, is the embodiment of fears and anxieties, and the unknown more than anything else. It isn’t the fact that he is a vampire that is terrifying, but that he is a vampire and no one else knows it, making him a potent predator, ready to strike. Everything about monstrosity is culturally-woven. Cuda is afraid of Martin because he knows what he is capable of, as conditioned by the culture we are raised in, where we are told to fear those who are different. Thus, what difference is there between Martin before and after the inhabitants of Braddock find out he’s a vampire? He is an outsider regardless, and his different way of living is bound to stir some controversy. Much like the protagonist, Geryon, in Autobiography of Red, what makes Martin so frightful to others isn’t that he is a supernatural being, but rather that he is different, which is, in essence, the core of monster theory: it isn’t the capacity for destruction that scares us of monsters, its the element of the unknown that accompanies them that frightens us. Like any outsider trying to enter into a new society, there will always be an inability to be completely included, which fits with Cohen’s idea that the monster defies any social categorization. Monsters represent another level of nature, and thus any attempt, whether by the monster himself or those around it, to assimilate him or her into society is bound to fail.

There have been many works that try and sympathize with monsters, humanizing them and portraying them as misunderstood. As Cohen boldly titles one segment of his paper, “the monster dwells at the gates of difference” – why is it that the most terrifying monsters are not grotesque and unrecognizable beings, but rather uncanny and familiar forms that are only slightly different? Romero seems to understand the capacity for the recognizable to terrify us when repurposed in a way that is slightly different from what we’d expect. Why is it that someone before death is so innocuous, but should they rise from their eternal slumber and begin roaming the earth that they are suddenly indicative of some horrifying apocalyptic vision? The same can be said for vampires – what are they other than humans who are immortal and feed on blood? As a species, we are naturally hesitant to trust what we don’t understand, and these beings, who are the same as us, just being ever so slightly removed from normality, terrify us more than any other otherworldly creature that is unrecognizable. There is a certain threat that comes with monstrosity that goes beyond the realm of terror, embedding itself within sociological theory – these creatures not only have the capacity to cause immediate harm to the individual, but long-lasting harm to the society (hence why the first zombie or two is a novelty, but it becomes a problem when there are hordes of them). We can go deeper into the parallels between monstrosity and non-normative traits, such as sexuality and race (as Carson does), but would be too deep of a reading, and would ignore the fact that Martin simply portrays the complex social reaction to outsiders with remarkable nuance without ever being heavy-handed.

Finally, the thesis that bears the most relevance to Martin is that monstrosity, whether we acknowledge it or not, is inherently related to desire. Just as fast as we are repulsed by the different, we are also allured to the exotic, seduced by the unknown. There is a reason why vampire stories are mostly a blend of unhinged terror and quiet eroticism, which is certainly not a trait lost in this film. The titular protagonist is a healthy young man of different appetites, normally making a full meal out of his various rendezvous with women along the way, and his victims are often attracted to the idea of Martin, even if they don’t realize what he actually is. It is human nature to be curious about the taboo, and our attraction to the unknown is evident in our fascination with these stories. Once we get over the initial discomfort of the themes of monstrosity, we find often very compelling tales of desire and satiation, which are better when done with a more sardonic gaze, as in this film. The forbidden nature of these creatures are what draws us closer to them – why is it that Christina in this film could have anyone, but she is so naturally drawn to Martin, especially after both are explicitly forbidden from being in contact with each other? We are beings that enjoy performing different identities and combined with a less puritanical society, the ability to access the taboo is easier for many, which makes the idea of these stories so seductive, and not even in a sexual manner, but in a primal, visceral way.

Monsters are not only a representation of our darkest fears, but also of our ability to change and adapt, and films like Martin blur the lines between humanity and monstrosity in a way that evokes reevaluation of our own ideals and incites existential quandaries – sometimes the monster is inside our own mind, and whether it be a result of repressed memories or suppressed desires, they represent the capacity to grapple with different social and cultural themes. This is an underlying concept in this film, with Romero dismantling the well-established but cliched mythology around vampirism, and even provokes the possibility that Martin himself may be far more human than we’d expect. I wouldn’t necessarily call Martin a horror film, but it is certainly a film about a monster. This film’s main purpose seems to be as a dark character study about a young man trying his best to survive, and satiating his desires as far as he can. We never actually know if Martin is a vampire – he shows no signs of repulsion at the sight of a crucifix, eats garlic openly and even basks in the sunlight – there are no outward signs that he may be a vampire other than his great-uncle’s consistent belief that he is, and Martin’s insatiable bloodlust, which finds him seeking out victims to draw blood from. The true vampiric qualities are left entirely ambigious, and it would be just as accurate to believe him to be a demented young man with unusual desires and a homicidal streak (which is essentially a vampire, just he isn’t undead) as it would be to believe him to be “Nosferatu”, as he is repeatedly called. Martin is either about a vampire who goes about his unconventional business and is haunted with images of his past philanderings or an ordinary social outcast with a vivid imagination. Whichever is the accurate one is entirely up to the viewer’s own imagination.

Martin is a vampire film that isn’t scary in the traditional sense, nor is it as riveting in the same way the thrilling tales of Count Dracula and his narrative offspring throughout the years have been. But rather, George A. Romero crafted something quite extraordinary – a socially-conscious character study about a young man attempting to come to terms with his own supposed monstrous identity. It is a gritty film and is built upon a naturalistic approach to storytelling, with the director prioritizing substance to style, which was quite groundbreaking for vampire films at the time, which were far more extravagant and all about the lavish and seductive nature of these beings and their existences. The enormous Romanian castles are replaced with drab streets in working-class suburbia, the charming and pompous vampires in cloaks are replaced by an ordinary young man who would otherwise be mistaken for just another normal teenager. Martin is a captivating drama about disconcerting themes, and its hypnotic approach blended with realist sensibilities makes this an astonishing achievement, and undeniably one of the finest works by a director who helped set the foundations for contemporary horror, and left an indelible impression on a genre of films made to scare us, but with Romero going even further: he doesn’t only want to frighten us – he dares us to think and consider not only what terrifies us, but also what makes us human, which is a lot more complex a concept as it would appear, as evident in this extraordinary film.