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".
感觉打高分的人是想传播诅咒，打低分的人是坚强地接住诅咒！
4分。手持相机近景特写拍摄还是很考验演员的演技的，镜头直接怼脸脸上的微表情一览无余，对于朱迪来说，这片里她的完成度十分高，印象最深的是凌晨那场戏，那种抑制自己情绪崩溃的表情，真的不忍心看。即使后面飞跃疗养院这出戏真的有点偏离了，但整体而言还是一部可看性十分高的电影，同样是新冠题材的，以小见大的功力可见一斑。
感觉打高分的人是想传播诅咒，打低分的人是坚强地接住诅咒！
中式恐怖可拍的太多太多了，是不需要黄暴却让人头皮发麻的恐怖，它自成体系、有特色，素材更是多如牛毛。可惜内地禁太久，不知错失多少经典，即使有望解禁，也不会再有黄金时代的条件，强如张艺谋再拍一遍红高粱也还原不了当年的真实感，更别说像霸王别姬、四大名著这样需要天时地利人和的作品了。
“所以这个片子是大黑佛母剪的吗”哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈
这么多年终于等到比《中邪》更棒的华语恐怖片了！！！！剧本写作非常完美！！！年度电影！！
恐怖倒是不恐怖，就是这种打破第四面墙和观众互动的形式太特么缺德晦气了！想拿石头砸导演家窗户。友情提示看到后面要念咒不要念，叫你记图案不要记，信则有，不信则无。
算是少有的不枯燥、不太晃、废戏少、能让人看进去的伪纪录片了，比《昆池岩》《中邪》《灵媒》之流都要有趣太多，华语恐怖片还得是台湾牛👍🏻恐怖元素都既丰富又有趣，地道里的蚰蜒，宗教、后面的“视觉暂留”，都明显感受到团队精心设计的诚意，吓得我头皮发麻(ಥ_ಥ)
原先以为只是一个小孩儿发神经，类似于《孤儿怨》这种。但欲往下看便愈发觉得本片挺有导演的个人意识。
好看啊，刷新了华语恐怖片的天花板，华语恐怖片的天花板再也不是「山村老尸」了
3.5 鼓励 中式恐怖能拍这样挺好了 非大众题材但凡出圈必暴跌 前排这么多说晦气 难不成恐怖片给你拍成正能量？
我真的太吃民俗恐怖这一套了，从小去很多寺庙，虽然根本不理解那些神佛的意义、由来，但是耳边的念经祈祷声，古旧的跪拜垫子、神像、洞穴里摆放的供奉台，这些事物对于年幼的我都是记忆深刻并且发自内心的害怕和尊敬。并且电影后面用红字一个字一个字讲述佛母由来，闪完之后的一个白屏，前面符号的视觉暂留真的让我觉得这个“诅咒”“缠”上我了，当听到电影让我闭眼，我下意识的闭上眼，闭上眼仍然有符号的视觉残留，导演这个小巧思真的太戳我了，很喜欢！！还有最后一睹佛母的脸，一度以为是要黑屏处理，没想到导演真的让我们看见，看到一个热评说的很好：我们看见了，我们很爽！
结构比较混乱也没有很有趣，迷影到随处可见的前辈reference，ending前还要加插温情戏码，有些镜头的拍法也基本跟传统手持没有两样，为了剧情需要非要摆个可以拍4k的dv拍，也是不要太做作，这些都是束手束脚没放开的表现。
节奏不快，一开始都是小菜，整得氛围比较诡异而已，从两个男的出地道就开始高能，后面师傅师母那里真的吓死，结尾看翻译的时候不知不觉就记住了符号的样子，让观众念也是默念，心理暗示玩得很溜，不知不觉就被带着走了，包括第一人称摄像机的画面，也有一种被带动的感觉，代入感十足。这么多信这信那的观众，建议不要看，敢看恐怖片就把它当个乐子即可，国产恐怖片做到这样已经是在尝试触碰天花板了，平时都说亚洲的宗教元素很适合拍恐怖片，那宗教元素不都含有这种煽动性的内容，拍出来又有一堆人怕了。
他们说 要拍好你的片 没有人爱华语片
怎么看都跟《灵媒》有几分神似，但让我惊讶的是《咒》并没有逊色太多，虽然关于恐怖的部分，《咒》略显小气，属于雷声大雨点小，没《灵媒》那么猛料，但要看到结尾才能明白它真正恐怖的地方。故事开头的那个理念，我觉得还挺高级的，但正因如此我才嗅到了不对劲，女主似乎在试图一遍一遍诱导观众进入她的圈套，所以我就猜到了那个咒语一定是相反的意思，也猜到了她该不会是想让观众来当这个大冤种吧，这种互动式叙事，用在恐怖片中真的太有代入感了。伪纪录片叙事有一个弊端，就是需要大量无关紧要的琐碎来营造真实感，导致本片前半部分非常乏闷，我也第一次见伪纪录片被剪得如此零碎，蹦出很多不合常理的镜头调度让事件失实。不过瑕不掩瑜，整体来说这是华语恐怖片难得的一次高光，尤其结尾真相揭秘，情感瞬间升华，片尾字幕一出，又更一层升华主题。
这种题材和这种拍摄方式的恐怖片很特别，第一次感觉眼前一亮的恐怖片，看完以后还是久久觉得有点后怕……胆子大试试呗
为玩弄观众的创意加一星。不过那个男的去云南的时候明明已经2020年之后了，为什么飞机落地后不需要隔离14到21天？
其实我觉得拍得不错中式这种恐怖元素抓得很好，尤其女主真实意图回想起来细思极恐
还可以啦，因为受到了友邻的提示，没有“上当”！感谢友邻！同理，不要喝来历不明的饮料！
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