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".
导演中国背景让这个故事更东方更易懂，但是本质还是一个讲给西方人的故事。在多伦多，在人类大同社会里描绘老祖宗到现在的blessings，也可能是诅咒。最后青春期小女孩meilin和爸妈和解，和小男孩和解，和朋友和解大团圆。高潮部分完全没想到是我妈不让我变成红熊猫，所以我妈变成红熊猫来打我，全家一起上阵变成红熊猫帮妈妈拖回来...动机不明确，且在多处地方出现。便利店小哥成了衬托妈妈的家教严格而多余。外婆的警告说红熊猫力量变大，最后也没有get到底哪里需要警惕？为了看演唱会这条动机还是明确的，借熊猫赚钱星星眼可以get，而且看得出编剧的可爱之处。但突然给我一个为了和解而和解的结局，我真的没有被说服（是不是还提了没必要完美，要对家人好一些的大道理，太浅）好在画风舒服可爱，配乐东方特色浓厚，还是惊喜的
用熊猫代表本我的动物性，选华裔代表被压抑个性的群体，符号择取上有心思。红色、熊猫、竹林、旗袍、道场、祠堂、chinatown，中国元素使用得十分讨巧。最后一次仪式时粤语唱经声中渐入b-box，再叠加4-town的出场，可称神来之笔；同样让人拍手称赞的还有用首饰进行封印的构思。Pixar的创作人员应该都放飞了自己的red panda，才能每次都献出这么brilliant的创意；而中国的内容创作之所以如此疲软乏味，可能也是因为同样的原因——人不有趣，作品也难以有趣。
并没看，刚读了条目下一篇高赞超详细解读的影评，心里膈应的不行。这影片里对华裔十足夸张又臆想的刻板印象实在是让人厌，摆足了是华裔制作者在自己族裔身份上挖地三尺找卖点。这篇里列举的种种，从父母对子女的态度，到生活习惯，穿衣打扮，房间布置，不知是哪年哪月的残破符号了，现实生活里许多华裔与之毫无关联
太尼玛好看了！！！ 但是中文名，青春变形记这个名字，真的好扫兴！创作团队真的很理解青春期的孩子，所有的角色都很到位，影片中，没有一个部分是多余的！
东亚女性好像都是被这样训导着长大的，要乖巧孝顺，要优秀懂事。红熊猫像是每一个女孩子内心那个不那么符合这一切标准的自己，即使明明是自己的一部分，但因为不完美，仍然被家人、社会教导着应该把她封印起来。外婆是这么做的，也是这样教导妈妈的。妈妈是这么做的，也是这么期望美林的。但好在美林终于可以和拥抱那个不完美不合规矩的自己了，就连妈妈也可以和自己和解了，真好。女孩子们就是要放下条条框框，拥抱自己啊。
Will I ever be good enough? 为满足母亲期待，女儿隐藏了愤怒的火苗，收好了欲望的翅膀，远离羞耻的个人愿望，被迫保持开放的个人空间。高管控家庭的母女关系，需要父亲的参与，也需要她喊出：我是青少年了，deal with it！/ 母女的和解仿佛《小妈妈》，回到生命中相同的时刻，她们同受自恋母亲的控制，开始反思这套养育方式。 / 才不要当同一性早闭、情感稳定的大人呢，红色熊猫能捍卫自己的边界，也能成为戏剧性强的派对女王。 / 双相障碍遗传度80%，这是家族的“诅咒”，也可以理解是一种赐福，需要腾出空间与她共存。
别人13岁就学到的人生感悟，我都快30了还在学。/这段时间在看山月记 里有写到 每个人都是驯兽者 而各自的性情就是那只猛兽。特别想问自己，那只属于你的猛兽，现在你把她驯服了吗？2022.3.28
整部片子在妈妈变大之前都有点无聊，把青春期幻化成怪兽其实很有意思，但是呈现得太表面了：美美在妈妈面前装的很辛苦这个点应该再多给一些，游戏时间可以短一些，低谷太短。虽说妈妈变大之后节奏稍微好起来了，但可惜母女和解还是写得很平。其实都可以更好。#但还是希望可以在电影院看唉
原来变红有初潮的隐喻，变红是blessing不是curse，是关于成长关于叛逆关于寻找、接纳、释放真实却不怎么被看见的自己。很多关于中国式家庭传统的东西虽然夸张但很有共鸣， 很喜欢那句“i m 13, deal with it”。ps：毛茸茸胖嘟嘟的red panda真的过分可爱了我要买周边！！！
国配or粤配解锁皮克斯新体验，除此之外Nothing special，某些方面甚至还不如迪士尼本家去年的《寻龙传说》。
表达太强了，还能戴着可爱表相的隐喻，神了……从第一句就开始咬指甲揪头发抠地板了😅导演果然是大陆走出来的女孩子，每个东亚小孩都会感同身受，控制，期望，同化，冲突，无论和解与否，亲情的羁绊是世界上最无奈的东西。就这片子不应该抓住东亚市场，放映个3个月？→看了看评论，我对国人的期望还是太高了
期待过高了，反而不惊艳
和小包子一样不伦不类，充满了老掉牙的刻板印象。
还能在新鲜一点吗？不就是拐着弯的说某国的文化是落后的，劝年轻人“投诚”这点烂戏码吗？
从青春期的变化与面临的问题讲起，做妈妈眼里的完美女孩还是做自己，这之间充满着家族传承的枷锁以及女性集体心灵的阴影面。还好最后她做出了忠诚于内心的决定。
我永远达到不了我妈心中的标准所以要让我的女儿达到我的标准，很典型的东亚母女关系。红头发太可爱了🥺
成年后我花了非常非常多的时间跟爸妈拉锯 如果和解真的只需要把彼此割伤一次就好了
好看好看好看！我就是这样长大的！不许去演唱会和犯花痴的桥段太有共鸣了！谁不能在这个妈妈身上找到一点自己妈妈的影子呢哈哈哈！仪式的疯狂走向我太喜欢了！片里各种粤语超标准发音也让人听着非常舒坦：新怡~~~
年度最佳预定，没想到我们的文化总是得靠米国人拍出来展现给世界……
这个的制作思路比较怪，内容是中国的，叙事风格是日本的，制作是美国的……有点三国演义的意思。
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