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".
剧情真是一波三折。叛逆少女、单亲家庭、失业危机、精神疾病、家境陡落……还有最后的意外事件，前半段抑郁，后半段柳暗花明，最后又差点再跌落谷底，但我不觉得这是个故事，这是真实的生活。两位女性主演很赞，状态都拿捏的准确。我们都有自己也未必预料的那么坚强，这是生命寻找出口的原始张力。
6.0 内在外在都缺少感染力，强行植入意向，剧本生硬，心理惊悚尴尬。鸡汤大师钟孟宏。
我还是很吃这种路数。你脑中的瀑布，变作一场无预警泄洪将我淹没。不要再问你还好吗，我会努力变好，我们一起好好生活。Don‘t sweat it。
被隔离，被压抑，人与人之间强烈的距离感。“你可不可以答应我一件事？不要再问我‘你还好吗’，我会想办法好起来，好好地跟你一起过下去。”
你说它做作也好沉闷也罢，但在华语影坛还能这么风格独树一帜的也只有台湾电影了。后半部分要好于前半部分，有种突然要放晴又下起了暴雨的那种猝不及防。导演个人风格还需要更精更沉更深的历练才能达到某种大师级的水准，很多地方都过于刻板而失了纯粹和真诚。贾静雯的演技吧我觉得拿影后有点过誉了，可能也确实没有什么能竞争的对手了。
拍得真好。母女的演技真的太自然太棒啦。中年危机、房贷脱供、卖房受骗、做饭着火，疫情确诊，这种种事情都在我们周围，都在当下发生着，我们以旁观者的角度看电影，也身处其中去体会成年人的辛酸苦楚。无奈无奈
在新冠疫情之下单亲家庭的悲欢生活剪影，中产阶级的蜗牛壳并不比外卖盒硬多少，命途多舛人生难测，故事背景可谓与时俱进（结尾安排的突发事件亦是采用发生在去年的真实案件）。影片的演职人员团队几乎都是从《大佛普拉斯》、《阳光普照》、《同学麦娜丝》一直延续的班底，一群戏精本精你方唱罢我登场；无论是叙事还是表演，力求稳妥贴切、不刻意煽情、不用力过猛，比起人均几个凡尔赛的精致妆容正能量自信片要踏实许多。人家戴上口罩、只露双眼、全程素颜一样可以飙演技。“每个人都有难堪的过去，只是大小不同而已。而且，未来会怎样，也没有人知道。”“瀑布”是曾经的生活的崩塌、是深藏的执念的席卷、是破而后立的晓喻新生。“不要再问我你还好吗，我会想办法好起来。”栉风沐雨，玉汝于成，否极泰来，未来可期。主题曲陈珊妮《抉择》大赞。
没有太大野心没有俗套的家庭伦理，干净的故事
剧情真是一波三折。叛逆少女、单亲家庭、失业危机、精神疾病、家境陡落……还有最后的意外事件，前半段抑郁，后半段柳暗花明，最后又差点再跌落谷底，但我不觉得这是个故事，这是真实的生活。两位女性主演很赞，状态都拿捏的准确。我们都有自己也未必预料的那么坚强，这是生命寻找出口的原始张力。
历史的洪流里，一个生命一个家庭一个社会即便如瀑布倾泻，天翻地覆，可激流跌落的地方，永远是波澜不惊的大江大河，疫情也如是。
克制的场景布置反而让这种精神状态变得有些拧巴，诸多元素间渗透的清冷反而让呈现变得刻意。
前三十分钟的反转很精彩，讲述日常生活暗流涌动的方式很台湾，平静中带有一些迟滞和疏离，偶尔情感爆发的时候也是这样，会想起杨德昌。但也有一些suspense，对人物以及母女关系，接下来会发生什么都挺说不好的，所以对整个电影的理解也不知道应该如何。其实最不理解的就是母女情感的修复，比较喜欢精神病院友的小故事【其实如果接受其鸡汤设定就可以有个着力点去理解了，但恰恰不喜欢结尾所以拒绝这样
巨大变故的重建 被拆掉蓝色围挡的透亮 始终太摆拍
我愿称之为“疫情时代命题作文”（所以最后事故那段有点画蛇添足啊）。吊打内地同主题电影毫无疑问，但仍有差口气的感觉，大概是后半段的乐观向上很不钟孟宏吧。用贾静雯大概和阳光普照用许光汉思路差不多，都是追求颠覆既有形象以及将最美丽的角色打入最苦难的凡尘之反差感。PS：抉择太好听了。
相比上部《阳光》更爱这部，暴满、完整，并不觉得做作。前半部分压抑惊悚仿似鬼片的氛围过渡到后半部渐渐的转换成云开见月明的生活流。女儿和母亲都演得好，两人无奈的对手戏也是默契十足心领神会，贾静雯简单是脱胎换骨，面容越来越靠近鲍起静来，而岁月的沉淀也让她自然而然转型成功演技派，这是时光赐于的礼物。
冰冰凉凉的，钟镜头下的台北好冷感好阴森，但是故事又是温柔的，很微妙。我觉得观感比《阳光普照》好。
单亲母亲与她青春期女儿既矛盾重重又充满温馨的亲情生活以及她们在疫情大环境下应对经济的困境。摄影美术剪辑等都还算精良，但作为传统故事片，大量剧情发展与转折都极其主题/概念先行，这导致各种角色形象缺乏连贯与统一更像是极其混乱的拼贴（因为故事并不是由角色推动而是强行转折，所以为了配合转折角色形象只能被强行改变）。
就 很动人的一段母女的故事，青春期少女与妈妈的恶性关系，逼到极致后 母女关系身份对调，少女一夜长大，才发现她们其实只能依靠对方。各方面设计得挺巧妙的，看得出花了心思，很喜欢前半部分的惊悚元素，and贾静雯厉害的！
直观的感受就是 <瀑布>有一套完整的美学系统 ，蓝色的住宅外立面 条装折叠的蓝色口罩 家里失火后的蓝色打光都是瀑布的颜色，其实以颜色写精神状态已不再新鲜 安东尼奥尼<红色沙漠>早就开了这方面先河，但钟导在当下疫情背景下选择了这种处理手法还是非常有效的。在妈妈的臆想症好了之后，蓝色的意象逐渐消失 甚至口罩都没有再出现。
我愿称之为“疫情时代命题作文”（所以最后事故那段有点画蛇添足啊）。吊打内地同主题电影毫无疑问，但仍有差口气的感觉，大概是后半段的乐观向上很不钟孟宏吧。用贾静雯大概和阳光普照用许光汉思路差不多，都是追求颠覆既有形象以及将最美丽的角色打入最苦难的凡尘之反差感。PS：抉择太好听了。
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