Author: Jez Winship
First published: 2016
The blurb: George A. Romero changed the face of Horror cinema with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. But it would be a decade before he caught lightning in a bottle again.
Romero spent those 10 years honing his craft on a series of documentaries and low budget features that would culminate in the global phenomenon of DAWN OF THE DEAD in 1978. But MARTIN, made immediately beforehand, in 1977, is his unsung Masterpiece.
Mature, controlled, and devastatingly effective, MARTIN is one of the most astonishing character studies ever committed to film. The tale of an alienated young man who may, or may not, be a vampire (a stunning performance by John Amplas); it is, by turns, disturbing, shocking, and heartbreaking. One of the finest American films of the 1970s.
The review: This book is no less than a love letter to Romero’s vampire film, in which the author waxes lyrical about a film they clearly adore. If you are a fan of the film, therefore, it is likely that you will, at the very least, get something out of it and more likely quite a lot. A slim volume (the first edition limited to 200 numbered hardbacks) it dispenses with trappings such as chapters and is, essentially, a long, almost scene-by-scene, synopsis into which factoids and interpretations are thrown. Some of the interpretations are interesting and could have done with a more detailed explorations (at times), and there are aspects where an academic analysis would have been welcome, but the book is as intended and will appeal to those who want less academic focused volumes. The author’s style suits the format, with a chatty, enthusiastic quality to the prose. If I did have a gripe (and notwithstanding the comment about academic volumes) it is the sparsity of citation – the author does offer where (book or, often, DVD extra) he got a particular fact, and there is a bibliography, but I would have liked, for instance, a referenced page number with each book cited.
To repeat myself, fans of the film will find much to love within. 7 out of 10.
In Hardback @ Amazon US
In Hardback @ Amazon UK
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