Seven hours of fun in the most crazy and fascinating serial ever made.
Far from the polished finish of Tih Minh, Les vampires is a carefree and unpredictable mess shot mostly in desolate Parisian suburbs and painted interiors of mansions, improvising plots based on the actors available at any given moment (among them an unforgettable Musidora) and with the freshness of the unexpected and the fortuitous.
The best thing about the serial is Feuillade's visual imagination, his absolutely unpredictable character, an always frenetic pace and the presence of Musidora as Irma Vamp, number 2 of the vampire clan, although she herself is capable of surviving four bosses of the gang. Her appearance in the third episode is unforgettable, on the stage of a low-life cabaret, where the criminal gang meets between Apaches and criminals to plan their hits and enjoy their wild dances. But her best-known image is clad in a tight black suit during any of her misdeeds.
It is true that there is a marked evolution throughout the chapters that increasingly abandons the macabre initial triumphs of the gang (which initially leaves a trail of dead in its wake), towards a less lethal attitude, focusing on kidnappings or failed attempts of murder, possibly because of the censorship that did not see with good eyes that the criminal gang got away with it and repeatedly outwitted the forces of order. It's like a gradual descent from the menacing atmosphere of Fantomas to the much more tolerable one of a Judex or Tih Minh. Even so, the last chapters include some of the best moments of the entire serial.
Feathers loaded with lethal ink, poisoned rings, strange hiding places behind paintings on the walls, safes with false bottoms, portable cannons fired from simple hotel rooms, and naturally many hooded, rooftops, trunks and car chases.
If vampires are the ones keeping our interest, law enforcement doesn't fare so well: journalist Philippe Guerande (played by a rather bland Edouard Mathé) and his collaborator Mazamette (a mostly insufferable Marcel Lévesque of highly questionable humor) they earn our respect by their goodwill and little else.
Without the budget of its other great serials, in the midst of the First World War, Les Vampires does not hide its flimsy doors that look like cardboard, its painted carpentry on the walls, and some rudimentary special effects, but everything adds to its charm and its attractive lack of respectability.
Feuillade only intends to surprise us, amuse us, immerse us in an atmosphere of delirium, oneirism and rejection of all logic, and give us a handful of absolutely fascinating images along the way.
Far from the polished finish of Tih Minh, Les vampires is a carefree and unpredictable mess shot mostly in desolate Parisian suburbs and painted interiors of mansions, improvising plots based on the actors available at any given moment (among them an unforgettable Musidora) and with the freshness of the unexpected and the fortuitous.
The best thing about the serial is Feuillade's visual imagination, his absolutely unpredictable character, an always frenetic pace and the presence of Musidora as Irma Vamp, number 2 of the vampire clan, although she herself is capable of surviving four bosses of the gang. Her appearance in the third episode is unforgettable, on the stage of a low-life cabaret, where the criminal gang meets between Apaches and criminals to plan their hits and enjoy their wild dances. But her best-known image is clad in a tight black suit during any of her misdeeds.
It is true that there is a marked evolution throughout the chapters that increasingly abandons the macabre initial triumphs of the gang (which initially leaves a trail of dead in its wake), towards a less lethal attitude, focusing on kidnappings or failed attempts of murder, possibly because of the censorship that did not see with good eyes that the criminal gang got away with it and repeatedly outwitted the forces of order. It's like a gradual descent from the menacing atmosphere of Fantomas to the much more tolerable one of a Judex or Tih Minh. Even so, the last chapters include some of the best moments of the entire serial.
Feathers loaded with lethal ink, poisoned rings, strange hiding places behind paintings on the walls, safes with false bottoms, portable cannons fired from simple hotel rooms, and naturally many hooded, rooftops, trunks and car chases.
If vampires are the ones keeping our interest, law enforcement doesn't fare so well: journalist Philippe Guerande (played by a rather bland Edouard Mathé) and his collaborator Mazamette (a mostly insufferable Marcel Lévesque of highly questionable humor) they earn our respect by their goodwill and little else.
Without the budget of its other great serials, in the midst of the First World War, Les Vampires does not hide its flimsy doors that look like cardboard, its painted carpentry on the walls, and some rudimentary special effects, but everything adds to its charm and its attractive lack of respectability.
Feuillade only intends to surprise us, amuse us, immerse us in an atmosphere of delirium, oneirism and rejection of all logic, and give us a handful of absolutely fascinating images along the way.