I should be doubly shamed for not watching this film until now. I’m a horror nerd and a life-long Pittsburgher. For shame. Martin is absolutely incredible and without a doubt Romero’s best film next to Dawn of the Dead. (It might even eclipse that film, given Martin’s taut structure – not an ounce of fat here.) Romero plays a delicate balance of is he/isn’t he with the true nature of Martin – bona fide creature of the night (albeit one immune to most of the vampiric rules), or a mentally disturbed teenager whose illness is fed and abetted by his abusive grandfather? And really, which is more frightening? Romero chooses the down-and-out industrial suburb of Braddock as the backdrop to this utterly bleak fable and it’s a perfect setting – Martin lopes through the crumbling streets and drab townhouses, paying witness to sordid and empty relationships, economic losers, and the crushing monotony of the suburban middle class. There’s a lot of ways to read this film – most strikingly as a parable for puberty and the dangers of an ignored and dispossessed underclass (Martin, as a representative of this class, ventures to the higher-income and bucolic neighborhood of Highland Park to cull his victims). This one is winning October thus far for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment