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One of the deadliest words in the world of show business is ‘typecast’. The idea, or perhaps more accurately a curse, that your career and ultimately your legacy will be decided by a single role, no matter what you did or try to do to prove otherwise. Bela Lugosi, despite a career in film ranging from the dawn of the silent era to the late 50s, will always be known as Dracula over anything else. The cast of the original Star Trek suffered from it, in fact the idea of them being typecast was almost as famous as the actual show. The fear of typecasting has lead to many unfortunate ‘could-have-beens’ for many a movie fan, but honestly it’s hard to blame folks for being skittish. After all, the more diverse a actor you seem to be, the more roles you have open to you, and the better chance you have at putting food on the table. That’s mainly for lesser known actors though, I don’t think anyone gives a shit if RDJ is tired of playing Iron Man.
Generally speaking you don’t really hear about type casting when it comes to directors, it’s a different ball game after all, but if there’s one guy that fits in the bill in that regard it’s gotta be George A. Romero. Although there zombie movies before Romero (White Zombie for example, starring good ol’ Bela Lugosi), in fact Night of the Living Dead never even uses the word ‘zombie’, Romero’s work has so completely defined the undead in the pop culture consciousness that every piece of media with a zombie in it can trace their lineage to that one 1968 film. Romero’s legacy is so tightly ingrained with his Dead series that many people likely don’t realize he made other movies, ones that didn’t have any zombies at all in them. So what’s Romero like outside of his wheelhouse? Well what better time of year to find out?
Released in 1978, Martin (Romero’s fifth feature film) stars Jon Amplas as the titular Martin, a guy who drugs women, takes off their clothes and then murders them. Now I know it seems like, but it’s not what you think - Well, unless you thought he was a rapist, because he definitely is that, but Martin is a nosferatu. A vampire in other words, driven by an uncontrollable compulsion to drink human blood and molest unconscious women. A move to a small town with his elderly relative (who thinks he is an unholy abomination who needs to be destroyed) was meant to curb his desires, but illicit romance and family drama isn’t enough to get that monkey off his back, and soon he’s jonesin’ for more of that sweet nectar. After that, well… things go about as well as you might expect.
Martin was supposedly Romero’s favorite film to work on (he directed and wrote it), and watching it I think you can definitely tell. The little artsy flourishes like the black and white flashbacks, a protagonist who loves to talk in vague pseudo philosophy, the ending which seems to be trying to call back to the tragic irony of Night of the Living Dead’s ending but not nearly as well, it all adds up to Romero being way into this film. Which is fine, passion is what gets a movie in the can and on the screen a lot of the time, but it’s safe to say that he was way more into it than I was watching it, at the end of the day. Like the Emerson Lake & Palmer of film.
The thing is, I know what Romero is going for here. Keeping things vague over whether Martin is actually a vampire or whether he’s suffering from a mental illness (which is exacerbated by a fanatical and abusive family), taking the sexual undertones present in the Victorian vampire stories and running with it seems like something up his alley. The problem is that those stories and the movies of the past worked and those vampires were interesting because they were these sparingly used evil forces that the protagonist had to react, and whether Martin is a vampire or just thinks he’s one is irrelevant to the fact that he’s not sympathetic in any way and he’s not compelling enough as a character to carry a movie. Romero tries to pull off some moments here and there, like Martin trying to disprove the myths about vampires, but not only does it not lead anywhere it just comes across as hackneyed and melodramatic. Not once does Martin seem like a victim himself, not once does he seem remorseful for what he’s supposedly forced to do, he even rejects help when it’s offered to him (another little thread that leads nowhere). He’s a perpetually sullen antisocial man who stalks women, drugs them rapes and murders them, and I’m not sure what Romero is trying to make feel about him since I wanted him dead in the first five minutes and that didn’t change for the other 85 minutes. I mean I see enough fuckers like Martin by spending five minutes on the internet, I don’t need to see an entire movie about it.
I’m torn over whether I would classify Martin as a bad movie, but it’s certainly not a badly-made movie. This came out the same year as Dawn of the Dead after all, so you know Romero’s directing chops are up to snuff, and this being the first film to feature effects wizard Tom Savini means you’re going to be seeing a lot of people covered in fake blood. Also I kind of liked the black and white flashbacks, and the music was decent if a bit uneven. However Martin, for all it flourishes and literary subtexts, never made me think to myself ‘wow, this is really deep,’ but rather ‘christ, I don’t want to watch this anymore’. Especially since I have friends who have gone through things like that, and it’s not something to share a bowl of popcorn over. So while I can heartily recommend Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead and Day of the Dead, I just can’t recommend Martin.
Wrong place at the wrong time, I suppose.
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