Edouard Mathe stars as Philippe Guerande, a crime-fighting journalist who attempts to penetrate the international ring of thieves known as The Vampires. Among the most fascinating of these sophisticated thieves and assassins is Irma Vep (Musidora), a black-clad seductress whose name is an anagram for ''vampre'' and who endures today as an icon of European cinema.
At times gruesome, fantastic, and romantic, Les Vampires was a spectacular accomplishment that influenced filmmakers for generations. This Kino Classics edition is authorized by the Gaumont Studios, and was mastered in HD from 35mm film elements restored by the Cinematheque Francaise, and is accompanied by a new musical score by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.
"Les Vampires" (1915-1916) is directed by Louis Feuillade (Fantomas). This is a 417 minute long silent crime serial film that is broken up into 10 episodes of varying length. The Vampires are a criminal organization, and have nothing to do with the supernatural type of vampire. The soundtrack was added on after the fact and it's okay, but it seems to have no relationship with the movie and it comes across as rather uninspired and monotonous after a while. This film influenced the surrealists and various directors, such as Luis Bunuel and Alfred Hitchcock, and is considered important in the history of cinema.
This two disc set was apparently restored by Cinematheque Francaise, but only the title cards are actually clean looking. The rest of the picture has numerous instances of dust and other anomalies. This set is the tinted version, which is nice to see, however, this is a barebones set. There is no audio commentary, or special features of any kind. I would highly recommend Feuillade's earlier series, "Fantomas"(1914-1914), as it is now on blu-ray and it looks stunning, as it has been beautifully restored.
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