Shot in 1976, the horror icon George A. Romero’s psychological horror film Martin tells the grim tale of a troubled young man who believes himself to be a real vampire and moves in with his elderly, hostile cousin in a small town in Pennsylvania, where he tries to suffocate his lust for blood and violence. Besides being the first collaboration between Romero and renowned special effects artist Tom Savini, Martin goes into film history books with a very special quote attached to it: Romero considers this to be the favorite of all his films.
“Martin is designed to that all those supernatural monsters that are part of our literary tradition are, in essence, expurgations of ourselves,” Romero elaborated. “They are beasts we’ve created in order to exercise the monster from within us… I tried to show in Martin that you can’t just slice off this evil part of ourselves and throw it away. It’s a permanent part of us, and we’d better try and understand it.” For the European market, Martin was edited by Dario Argento and released under the name of Wampyr. In October 2021, much to Romero fans’ delight, a 16mm print of the black-and-white director’s cut was finally found and the film will soon be restored.
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