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Review

If one is asked to cite acclaimed horror director George Romero’s best work, typically the answer will inevitably end with the word “dead”: Romero’s zombie films - Night of the Living Dead (1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978), and Day of the Dead (1985), not to mention his forthcoming (as of this writing) big-budget Land of the Dead (2005) – are obvious genre landmarks, and deservedly highly praised. But Romero’s quietly haunting vampire film Martin, the film which immediately preceded Dawn, is known to be the director’s own personal favorite among his works – and there are many diehard Romero fans who might even be inclined to agree (or at least, to rank the film a close second behind whichever individual Dead film they most cherish). A melancholic character study of a disturbed young man (John Amplas in the eponymous role) who believes himself to be an ancient vampire and who subsequently victimizes unwilling blood donors with razors and syringes rather than fangs and capes, Martin is fundamentally a moving portrait of loneliness and isolation in the guise of a genre film. Despite the admittedly gory effects work from Tom Savini (his first collaboration with Romero), the film is far from Romero’s usual splattery stew, but rather a piece which has much in common with the director’s previous, largely ill-fated 1970s excursions outside the genre (i.e. Season of the Witch and There’s Always Vanilla): introspective studies of alienation, and people’s inability to emotionally connect with those around them. Martin benefits greatly from its decaying industrial town locations (the film was shot around Braddock, near Romero’s home base of Pittsburgh), which almost serve as an additional character in the film, amplifying Martin’s sense of estrangement from his traditional Eastern European immigrant family and his community. Martin remains a horror film at its core, and a genuinely disturbing one at that (this is, after all, a film which encourages audience empathy and compassion for a serial rapist and murderer), but it also endures as one of Romero’s most mature and heartfelt projects in its rich emphasis on character, setting, and mood. Alas, a caveat about this current Lion’s Gate DVD presentation of the film: shot in 16mm, with an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 (in other words, the dimensions of your television, unless you own a widescreen set), Martin has been unwisely framed for 1.85:1 widescreen on this DVD, resulting in some uncomfortable cropping of the original image. If possible, obtain the older Anchor Bay DVD release of the film, properly presented in its full-frame ratio.

 -- Travis Crawford