everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

I think that if I had seen this, I don't know, ten or more years ago, I wouldn't have this association but, watching Les vampires, maybe the first real groundbreaking piece of epic filmmaking to come out of France during the "pre-sound" era (I don't know about all of Europe since Cabiria was a year before and, come to think of it, this director also did Fantomas just before this, so I may be off completely)... this all seems like the precursor to countless graphic novels (think of the hardboiled stuff but also Superman and Batman to an extent in those worlds) and other pulp serials. In a way this is in league or the same ballpark as Fritz Lang's Dr. Mabuse: The Gambler, which is also a story of arch criminals and the cops and newspapermen on their trails, and both have an approach to storytelling that is plot driven (though Louis Feuillade is especially concerned with the storytelling twists and turns and mounting of suspense more than Lang, who could pause more often for creating mood and atmosphere). It's a story that is a procedural of the hunt AND about the criminals - and is really about, in each 'episode', drawing out the suspense of a moment and a beat and how, as we can assume, someone will get out of the jam they've been put in, whether that's the criminal or the intrepid Globe writer Philippe Gerande (even that seems to have been echoed years later in certain comic books).So much happens in the seven hours of this "film" (I'll call it that, but put quotes around it as it's technically a serial, but hey, it's a full work at the end of it all), and to recount every turn of the story would miss the point of its effectiveness. The interest in Feuillade's stories is to draw the audience in finding more clues on the Gerande's side - and, eventually, the former undertaker Mazamette with his mustache and nose and (a little too much) looking at the camera for audience emphasis as his sometimes partner - and then, perhaps daringly, into how the vampires work on their end. There's equal time spent between Gerande's side of the story, as well as some of the other characters connected with him like his mother (there's a terribly exciting episode where she gets kidnapped by the vampires and how she gets out of it is fantastic as it relies on a plant earlier that gets paid off, so to speak, that we almost don't expect), and then on the side of Irma Vep, the non-vampire-but-still-very-much-criminal Moreno, and the others like the villainous scientist who Irma ultimately falls for, and Satanas, the "Grande Vampire" of them all.What this does is not so much make us feel more sympathetic to them, they are the villains in a story that isn't subtle about drawing the distinctions between good and not, but to have us understand them as people, however they might be duplicitous in their line of operations, and a character like Irma Vep becomes the most memorable thing about this all for a reason. The actress, called only 'Musidora', has wild eyes that can pierce through anything, and how she moves around a space or a room, and then how those eyes can connect with someone, transforms the space she's in. Why does she do these acts of robbery and cat-thievery (more on that in a second), and, eventually, killing or at least by association? Because she can, just like all the other vampires. There's no grand political statement to what they do, outside perhaps of their disregard for morals or being 'proper' (there's a practically ritualistic dance that the characters do in the middle of a room that gets repeated), and she's that classic comic-book sort of villainess: cunning, ruthless, sometimes vicious, also playful, and in her 1915 way sexy as hell (her in that black suit, man). If any of the Batman writers and creators saw this, it'd be clear as day she was the inspiration for Catwoman (I have no way of knowing that, it's an assumption I'm reading in to).Louis Feuillade isn't exactly out for the *most* realistic depiction of a story of criminals and heroes, but it also sees cinema as an art form to be used for the utmost effect to give information (there's a great many newspaper clipping to look at to move the plot forward), and he's creating his own simple and effective cinematic grammar to keep the audience invested. This doesn't mean the series isn't without some share of flaws, much as a run of a graphic novel series might run out of steam closer to the latter issues, like introducing some new characters fairly late into the game (i.e. Mazamette's son Eustache is an annoyance, and Philippe's eventual fiancé is clearly there to be used, sooner rather than later, as another figure to be kidnapped by the vampires). It'd also be advised to not watch it all in one sitting but to parse it out if you can over a few nights; some of the turns and twists - and physicality like at times falling out of windows (watch out for that noose coming your way to pull you down!) - are repetitive. All this noted, it's still a tremendous achievement in pulp fiction storytelling, with the stakes and drama building up more and more as the episodes go on, and if you can buy into some (though not all) of the acting of the period there's a lot of amazing work done as well, most of all by Musidora, but also the actresses in the later episodes do wonderfully too.

Feuillade has become much more popular abroad than in his native France where his movies are seldom screened on "cultural TV ,the Arte Channel or the "Cinema De Minuit".Some critics call "Les Vampires" brainwashing at a time when France was at war .Some critics praise it to the skies.I'm for the golden middle .Feuillade was certainly important in the shaping of the serial (along "the perils of Pauline" in America)but he was not as great a director as his contemporaries David Wark Griffith and Abel Gance (whose career did not begin with "Napoleon" in 1926).The screenplay of "Les Vampires" is pretty silly,definitely weaker than that of "Fantomas" and it is sure easy to see why: "Fantomas " was first a set of volumes written by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain -and Feuillade botched the first chapters which were the best of the saga :see Paul Fejos's "Fantomas" (1932) for that matter.But the rest was quite acceptable,some movies(the third episode :"Le Mort Qui Tue" notably) highly commendable."Les Vampires" was a different matter ,because it was an original screenplay and the writer/director had to kill the "Chef Des Vampires" ,not because he thought the audience needed change ,but because it was the war and the actors were mobilized.That's why Feuillade gave up making "lEs Vampires" after 10 episodes and opted for a "good " hero ,Judex ,a conjurer fighting against the villains.The stories are far-fetched to a fault ,pleasant to watch,but not particularly memorable (Maurice Leblanc was writing much more brilliant stories at the time featuring his hero Arsene Lupin who is much more exciting than his bland hero Philippe Guérande and his mate/undertaker.Much more than the stories,it's the details that are interesting: the maid Mrs Guerande hires is a Girl from Britanny ,and at the time most of the servants came from that region:this was the subject of Becassine ,a comic strip of the era;it's interesting to note that whereas the villains have lovers,the hero,after losing his fiancée in the second chapter-and he doesn't even shed a tear-,remains chaste till the ...ninth episode in which he finds another one.Musidora's famous black tight caused an outcry : the series remained famous for her but she only appears in her outfit in two brief moments: one when she's scrawling on the roofs and the other one in a hotel where she also appears (that crowns it!) dressed as a young man complete with mustache .Feuillade's most salutary quality was story -telling :even if the plot seems too often too much ,we can't help but admire the way he uses the pictures and thus keeps his lines to the minimum -a thing many of his colleagues could not do-.Feuillade's influence in France?One sees little of it in the great directors of the Golden Era (Carné,Renoir,Guitry,Duvivier,Et Al). Feuillade's influence shows ,however,in one of Duvivier's silent films " Le Mystere De La Tour Eiffel" or even in Clair's "Le Fantome Du Moulin Rouge" .Feuillade 's most dedicated follower was Georges Franju who made a remake of "Judex"(1963) and "Les Nuits Rouges"(1973) ,a failed attempt at a seventies "Vampires".Most of this director's works have something of Feuillade : "Les Yeux Sans Visage"(1959) "La Tête Contre Les Murs" (1960)"Pleins Feux Sur L'Assassin".(1961)In the seventies,Feuillade's touch appeared again in Rivette's stuff ,but it's reserved for intellectuals.What was once the most popular French cinema of an era became one inspiration for the most cerebral (who said boring?) art.

Serials are a low point in film history, and the period around the Great War was bad for the French film industry, as well. Commemorating both is "Les Vampires," probably one of the best-remembered serials and the most accessible French motion picture of any kind from its era.Serials are banal sensationalism aimed at lowbrow tastes. They always have been, from their inception in magazines, newspapers and other cheap literature, which has continued to this day with television. It's always been economical--promising return customers looking for a satisfying wrapping up of previous installments' cliffhangers and loose ends. Usually, the budgets for them are quite thrifty. Additionally, it doesn't require much imagination if one repackages the same devices for each episode--and even less if one repackages the same devices from previous serials--all of which Louis Feuillade, more or less, did here. In many ways, TV series are today's serials.Feuillade further popularized serials in France, which was probably inescapable anyhow with the flood of American films (and serials) into the cinemas. For some reason, he seems to have garnered more respect than any other maker of chapter plays has--even to this day. I don't know of any other director mostly known for serials offhand. His pictures have had widespread popularity in their day, but also "Les Vampires" seems to remain one of the most praised representations of 1910s cinema. It's not evident that it has anything to do with a mastery of film-making, though; to the contrary, I think that's absent. The long takes from fixed camera positions get very boring, especially the scenes of extended length--those of the characters' every action: scaling buildings, driving off in automobiles, how exactly they go about their crimes and such, as fellow commenter tedg and others have described. This is similar to the practice in early cinema that film historians have called the "operational aesthetic," but which was dated even by 1915.As other filmmakers did, Feuillade alters tinting to suggest changes of light within the story. Other filmmakers, especially those in Denmark, actually changed the lighting of the scene for the change in light within the scene, which usually required a well-positioned splice. Otherwise, like Feuillade, Danish filmmakers from around this time tended to avoid editing and camera movement, too, but they replaced it with innovations in mise-en-scène, which aid the camera in creating brilliant images, as can editing and movement of the camera. Such innovation, staging, composition, or mastery is lacking in "Les Vampires." The actors do all the work, and the camera just sits there.You might, but I don't like this serial's content, either. It's a series of convoluted story lines involving a reporter detective and his sidekick Mazamette (played by an awful mugger of an actor) trying to rid Paris of Irma Vep and the underworld criminal gang known as the "vampires." To me it seems to be nearly seven hours of each side ineptly attempting to capture, imprison or kill the other.In episode eight: Why did they give Mazamette's child a gun, and why did they originate such an elaborate scheme to arrest the bad guy in the first place? Why would they use a kid? Where was a gun in the hands of a decent shot when it should have been in other scenes? And, the vampires require a justice to arrive after enough time has been provided for possible escape to declare their prisoner guilty, although, to their credit, they never do that again. Anyhow, you see my point.(*Review title taken from "The Serial Speaks," New York Dramatic Mirror, which is quoted in the chapter on serials in "The Oxford History of World Cinema.")

Lensed in an eerily abandoned Paris in 1915, Louis Feuillade's stark chapterplay LES VAMPIRES is a grim and powerful work which is worlds apart from the later glitz and polish of the golden age serials produced by the American studios.It should be noted that serials were nothing new at this point in time. Formative efforts such as THE PERILS OF PAULINE had already established the appeal of these generally inexpensive actioners, with their bizarre twists and inventive death traps.The emphasis was generally on a resourceful protagonist pitted against an equally inventive and determined fiend -- frequently an unsuspected heir or lawyer out to obtain an undeserved inheritance.LES VAMPIRES did this formula one better, making the menace a vast and largely unsuspected criminal empire which is devouring Paris from inside. With members taken from all classes, the dark society is able to plunder, blackmail and murder without dear of action from the authorities. This continues until their removal of a government investigator brings ambitious reporter Philippe Guerande (Edouard Mathe) into things.Sent to the country to search for details on the official's murder, Philippe plans to combine business and pleasure by meeting Dr. Lox, an old family friend who has a chateau in the area.Arriving at Lox's estate at the same time as an American heiress who means to purchase the property, the reporter is promptly framed for theft by the hooded agents of the gang, who are secreted in the ancient building.Locating the dead investigator's head, Philippe manages to turn suspicion on Lox. Murdering the heiress and making his escape across the rooftops, the "doctor" is revealed as the Grand Vampire the (evident) leader of the criminal society.Philippe falls into the Vampires' hands but is rescued by Oscar Cloud Mazamette (Marcel Levesque) -- a clerk and minor member of the gang whom he had helped earlier. Philippe and Mazamette combine to try to expose the society's operations and bring the gang to a deserved end.A series of adventures follow, with the Grand Vampire (Fernand Herrmann) and exotic dancer/criminal Irma Vep (Musidora) providing much of the opposition. In a surprise development, it is revealed that the Grand Vampire is not the gang's ultimate leader. When it is convenient, his superior eliminates him. He, in turn, commits suicide when he is imprisoned by the police.Satanas, the criminal mastermind behind the group's poisons and explosives steps in and assumes co-command with Irma Vep. This occurs too late, however, as Philippe is closing in on the gang's chief meeting place.After a series of close calls, the reporter and the reformed Mazamette succeed in destroying the Vampires' leadership and bringing the rank and file members to justice.Not enough emphasis can be placed on the serial's grim and stark look, which almost functions as a characters of its own. This is a Paris where the gang's activities have seemingly terrified the people to the degree that they refuse to venture out unless it is absolutely unavoidable.Production took place during WW I, when the streets were largely abandoned, and this strange desolation combines with the scurrying of the few characters to present a powerful emphasis that goes beyond the actual turns and twists of the plotline. The result is compelling, entertaining, and more than a bit weird in spots. Tinted scenes add to the welcome air of unreality.Definitely a 9 out of 10 possible points.