This French crime serial from the 1910s is one of the few silent serials left (and probably one of the only ones available for consumption). Louis Feuillade is its director. I watched the first four episodes (the tapes come each with four episodes of varying length) and will give a brief review of each.
SPOILERS
Episode 1: The Severed Head - I was a little afraid that Les Vampires was going to be really bad when I was sitting through The Severed Head. We are introduced to a journalist, Phillipe, who is hot on the trail of a notorious gang called the Vampires, which is the subject of his daily reports in the newspaper. An important lawkeeping official has been found dead, decapitated. Phillipe goes on the hunt, and the clues lead him to the home of Dr. Nox. Dr. Nox is currently showing his mansion to the mansion's potential buyer, an American woman. Long story short, this is a really weak film. The cinematic devices are still pretty new, but Feurillade shows no talent in using them or innovation in this first episode. It is unsuspenseful, slow, and somewhat laughable. 5/10.
Episode 2: The Ring That Kills - This one's a lot better than the first one. This one is rather short compared to the other three on the first tape. Phillipe sets up a trap at a ballet. There is a really neat ballet number involving a woman dressed as a bat. Anyway, the plan doesn't go that well and Phillipe gets captured. Luckily, Mazamette, a friend of his, has infiltrated the hideout of the Vampires. Phillipe is freed, and they capture a Vampire and put him in his place (he is about to be executed). All in all, The Ring That Kills is pretty goofy (some of the humor is intentional, some is not), but it is a pretty effective crime movie. 7/10.
Episode 3: The Red Cypher - Phillipe takes a few days off of work in order to decipher the codes in a book he has found on the Vampire whom he got killed in his place at the end of Episode 2. The Vampires devise a way to get into his house using false identities. A replacement maid, whose real name is Irma Vep (which you might recognize as the title of a French film from the 1990s), tries to poison Phillipe, but he tricks her as well. Phillipe's mother gets captured, but she also finds a clever way out of her dilemma. By now, this series is still quite silly, but it's pretty entertaining, especially in plot. The cinematic devices are still not used in any fantastic way, but the plot is getting a bit cleverer. Still a 7/10, but nearly an 8/10.
Episode 4: The Spectre - This one was a little confusing in its plot. I must have blinked at the wrong moment and missed an expositional intertitle. There's little of interest besides a decently directed and edited murder sequence in a train, good for its time, anyways, and Phillipe's reconnaissance of an office in which Irma Vep is spying, disguised as a secretary. Also, the final scene has a neat little thing in it: Phillippe and Mazamatte are talking on the phone, both of them present in the same shot. Between them is edited a shot of a bridge, a metaphor for the connection between phone lines. It's pretty dumb, but at least Feuillade was trying here.
Conclusion for Episodes 1-4: all in all, an interesting bit of early cinema, but The Vampires really doesn't hold up very well today. It's mostly just a rather flat series of crime stories, perhaps like the kind that might have appeared in a weekly detective magazine or something, filmed straight without invention or embellishment. Sure, it's still early as heck in the cinema, but by the end of the silent period the art form had gone light years beyond Les Vampires. I wish I were more familiar with D.W. Griffith. He's a contemporary of Feuillade's, and the few bits of his films that I have seen seem much more advanced than this serial. I don't want to make a definitive statement on the comparison between the two, though, until I see one of Griffith's films. Even the earlier films by the Lumiere Brothers, Georges Melies, and the Thomas Edison company seem a lot more amazing today than does this. I might see more of the serial if I ever get a chance to see it for free, but I doubt I'd pay any more money to rent them.
SPOILERS
Episode 1: The Severed Head - I was a little afraid that Les Vampires was going to be really bad when I was sitting through The Severed Head. We are introduced to a journalist, Phillipe, who is hot on the trail of a notorious gang called the Vampires, which is the subject of his daily reports in the newspaper. An important lawkeeping official has been found dead, decapitated. Phillipe goes on the hunt, and the clues lead him to the home of Dr. Nox. Dr. Nox is currently showing his mansion to the mansion's potential buyer, an American woman. Long story short, this is a really weak film. The cinematic devices are still pretty new, but Feurillade shows no talent in using them or innovation in this first episode. It is unsuspenseful, slow, and somewhat laughable. 5/10.
Episode 2: The Ring That Kills - This one's a lot better than the first one. This one is rather short compared to the other three on the first tape. Phillipe sets up a trap at a ballet. There is a really neat ballet number involving a woman dressed as a bat. Anyway, the plan doesn't go that well and Phillipe gets captured. Luckily, Mazamette, a friend of his, has infiltrated the hideout of the Vampires. Phillipe is freed, and they capture a Vampire and put him in his place (he is about to be executed). All in all, The Ring That Kills is pretty goofy (some of the humor is intentional, some is not), but it is a pretty effective crime movie. 7/10.
Episode 3: The Red Cypher - Phillipe takes a few days off of work in order to decipher the codes in a book he has found on the Vampire whom he got killed in his place at the end of Episode 2. The Vampires devise a way to get into his house using false identities. A replacement maid, whose real name is Irma Vep (which you might recognize as the title of a French film from the 1990s), tries to poison Phillipe, but he tricks her as well. Phillipe's mother gets captured, but she also finds a clever way out of her dilemma. By now, this series is still quite silly, but it's pretty entertaining, especially in plot. The cinematic devices are still not used in any fantastic way, but the plot is getting a bit cleverer. Still a 7/10, but nearly an 8/10.
Episode 4: The Spectre - This one was a little confusing in its plot. I must have blinked at the wrong moment and missed an expositional intertitle. There's little of interest besides a decently directed and edited murder sequence in a train, good for its time, anyways, and Phillipe's reconnaissance of an office in which Irma Vep is spying, disguised as a secretary. Also, the final scene has a neat little thing in it: Phillippe and Mazamatte are talking on the phone, both of them present in the same shot. Between them is edited a shot of a bridge, a metaphor for the connection between phone lines. It's pretty dumb, but at least Feuillade was trying here.
Conclusion for Episodes 1-4: all in all, an interesting bit of early cinema, but The Vampires really doesn't hold up very well today. It's mostly just a rather flat series of crime stories, perhaps like the kind that might have appeared in a weekly detective magazine or something, filmed straight without invention or embellishment. Sure, it's still early as heck in the cinema, but by the end of the silent period the art form had gone light years beyond Les Vampires. I wish I were more familiar with D.W. Griffith. He's a contemporary of Feuillade's, and the few bits of his films that I have seen seem much more advanced than this serial. I don't want to make a definitive statement on the comparison between the two, though, until I see one of Griffith's films. Even the earlier films by the Lumiere Brothers, Georges Melies, and the Thomas Edison company seem a lot more amazing today than does this. I might see more of the serial if I ever get a chance to see it for free, but I doubt I'd pay any more money to rent them.