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Martin

From director George A. Romero comes a dynamic gothic original. Martin is a misunderstood young man who happens to be a vampire...maybe. The sun really just bothers his eye a little garlic and crosses have no effects and he has no fangs. He also doesn't have any vampiric powers which makes acquiring blood an extremely harrowing experience for all involved.Features:New Photo GalleryNew Commentary from G. Romero R. Rubenstein T. Savini M. Gornick and D. RubinsteinNew photo gallery"Making Martin: A Recounting"Original TV SpotsOriginal TrailerSystem Requirements: Running Time 95 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: R UPC: 031398163596 Manufacturer No: 16359

Martin (John Amplas) is a modern sort of vampire--he gains his victims' cooperation with the use of a hypodermic needle instead of hypnotism, and uses razors in the place of fangs. "There's no real magic," he says. "There's no real magic, ever." He says this to his elderly Romanian cousin, Tati Cuda (Lincoln Maazel), a true believer in the old religion, and self-appointed keeper of Martin, who threatens to do away with the boy if the vampirism doesn't stop. According to Cuda, the boy is actually 85 years old--young for a vampire. Truly, the supernatural element of the film is always at odds with psychological explanations that make Martin out to be a sexually disturbed teen, not an ancient bloodsucker. Martin's vampiric episodes are intercut with sepia footage of similar exploits from some gothic era, which may either be Martin's memories or his imagination; take your pick. Garlic, sunlight, mirrors--these are devices of Hollywood, and have no effect on a hypo-toting vampire like Martin, as he explains the rules in his role of frequent call-in guest on a radio talk show where he's known as "The Count." These ambiguities are left teasingly unresolved by the film, which is more interested in establishing the relationship between the traditional vampire and the modern-day psycho. Along with the film's narrative economy, these ambiguities make Martin Romero's midnight-movie masterpiece.
At the very end Romero borrows an image from Carl Theodore Dreyer's classic silent film Ordet, ratifying a moment of religious ritual. Knowing this as you watch the film only deepens the chill. --Jim Gay

Spyridon is a cyborg, created with the hope of cracking codes and gaining access into hidden databases of government enemies. Trained as a human to be a sponge for languages and learning the way of people, his cyborg form was created when he turned eighteen. The program was ended due to the severe breach in ethics after only a year of service. Most were either broken down, or their programs were wiped clean so the human part could take over, and they could return to their families. Spyridon was not so lucky. He was an orphan, pulled off the street, and had nowhere else to go. He managed to negotiate his way into keeping the programing. A move his creators quickly regretted. He used the program to release the classified files about his creation, the experiments, and the names of other victims, and what had been done to 'help them move on'. He has a bounty on his head now, claiming him a terrorist. The government has spread lies and rumors about him. Nine years later, no one seems to remember anything about the hacker cyborg. But nine years of laying low have started to make the cyborg annoyed, as his memory is endless, he's beginning to see history repeat itself without regular reminders from the past. Having aged only two years in those nine, he's decided it's time to become the reminder of all things foolish, and destructive that mankind has done.

Martin is co-founder and CEO of Planbox, a project management software-as-a-service startup. Before starting Planbox, Martin held many hats at Synopsys, the world leader in electronic design automation (EDA). First as a developer in Ottawa, he coded algorithms, application programming interfaces (API) and graphical user interfaces (GUI) for many software applications used in manufacturing of integrated circuits (notably for Intel). Later in Belgium as an application engineer, he ran clean room experiments and published many papers. Martin was an intrapreneur at Synopsys; he prototyped a software toolkit to interface with metrology equipment in the clean room. He then settled in Montreal and became product manager to lead development and commercialization of that software application. After a decade of fun and challenges, Martin decided to jump into the adventure of a startup.

Martin’s passion is building software applications people love to use. Coding is easy, but getting people to use your application is hard, and getting them to love it is close to impossible. Yet it is his lifelong mission to accomplish just that.

Martin holds a bachelor in computer science, and an MBA from the University of Ottawa.