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".
杰作！影片相当稳，非常符合个人口味，迷离疏远的音乐配合全片营造的气氛，还有特有的镜头感，使得观赏成了一种享受。本片其实是以赌牌为背景，主要细致展现主角的内心世界，逐步将主角的过往慢慢展现，主题是赎罪和自我救赎，并且以爱情为调料，总体上故事又不落俗套，本年度年末观影的一大惊喜发现。
被训练成变态的男主角，在复仇和玩牌的双线故事中无论哪个都不出彩。
手，算牌的手，喝酒的手，写作的手，在背上上纹人生信条的手，高举呐喊USA的手，鞭打囚犯的手，杀人的手，因复仇而断掉的手，爱的手。
黑色电影斥体制，噱头过后尽催眠。
漠视幸运，拒绝成为幸福的人，背负过往伤痛成为赎罪，算牌人最后把一手好牌打坏，但也是他不得不实现的救赎。
Oscar Isaac最近出任主演有一种很不好的趋势，大家一起感慨他有多帅还有称赞围绕他打造的服化道有多华丽成为了出演电影差不多唯一值得讨论的东西。当然不是说他是个充分性意义上的坏演员，但事情变成这样就挺尴尬的。赌牌本身是个非常容易被overvalued的题材（作为半个统计系学生这个题材我印象里唯一跟靠谱沾边的是《决胜21点》…），这片子里甚至连牵强附会都很勉强单纯就拿出来凑数的，除了主演其他人也可有可无宛如路人，想说的东西导演拍了那么多年都要说烂了，结果我们就回到了只能干夸一下男主角造型真不错的境地
两个以后必得影帝桂冠的男人演了一部什么电影？
# 78 Venezia # 3.5 除了男主无可替代的颜和肉以外，在沉默中的突然爆发会令不少观者路转粉，此外用于展示PTSD的扭曲镜头很精彩
中段冗长而毫无调度的对话戏太多了，几乎毁灭掉了观感。其实亮点还是比较明显的，把一个高概念的娱乐性的元素解构成逃避内心阴影的手段，从算牌的桥段中得不到任何心理上的爽感，而唯一的释放恰恰是主角最终割弃牌桌直面痛苦完成自我的救赎。问题就在于后者也并没有处理得很好……
说实在话我不知道片子到最后是要讲什么，难道是伤害别人的人也有PTSD吗？谁能给我解解惑
摄影和配乐都很好，但是故事不够戏剧化，多了真实感，却过于平淡让人食之无味，弃之可惜。
人生如牌局，男主的冷静与隐忍是为了做个社会化的“好人”，但没有正确释放的权欲和攻击欲最终都要找到一个宣泄的出口。导演的童年生活对心理影响应该挺大的。
深渊永远是深渊，凝视是残忍的，无论如何视而不见，它总就在那里。(没看懂、也不会再看….
算牌人但是和算牌并没啥关系。但是把奥拍的很美
虽然我挺困的，是真困了，但是电影还是好看的，强撑着睡意看完了。
十分政治正确的老美电影，节奏表演本子都过得去，也是许瑞德正常发挥，但就是不喜欢…
导演和音乐很不错，故事到后面有点崩，让我有些昏昏欲睡。
除了男主长得很像卡纳瓦罗，一无是处。节奏缓慢，女配垃圾。音乐还行。
因为会算牌，玩牌既可以打发时间也能挣到钱，他单调地活着，终日混迹赌场却清醒自持，不缺钱，缺活着的意义。碰见一个一心复仇的小伙子，他让小伙子跟着他，为了小伙子去参加需要资助人的赌博比赛，违背了一向小富即安的原则。给了小伙子15万，可以解决小伙子及其母亲的困境，可以从此开始正常的生活，他终于找到了活着的意义，热切地盼着小伙子跟母亲团聚的消息。可是，小伙子没有去找母亲还是去复仇并死求了。。。女资助人是他找的第二个活着的意义，这次进监狱，会盼着出来，因为有人来看他。。。想起当年看逃出拉斯维加斯，越看越绝望。这片不同，男主拼命找盼头，这是人和动物的区别，人需要意义，在冰冷中本能找暖和贴贴
有當年看落日車神的觸動感，真男人的感覺。這部電影的影像語言讓我感覺他就是一部電影，影像克制但必要時直入心靈，編導演皆好，原本台灣的宣傳弄得像一部B級娛樂片似的，好險剛好趕上全台灣最後一場放映，幸福。
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