Les Vampires

French director Louis Feuillade's seven-part serial blends horror, crime, comedy and fantasy in this story of a vampire gang who target the Paris elite for their games of sexual domination, psychological control, kidnapping, stealing and bloodthirsty murder. On their trail is a French journalist and his feisty female sidekick. Filmed in WWI Paris, the series was banned in France for its controversial subject matter. Silent with musical score. 4 cassettes. Slipcased. 1915/colorized/7 hrs/NR.

This legendary seven-hour silent French serial, one of the earliest and most original gangster films, combines realism and fantasy. Written and directed by Louis Feuillade, Les Vampires concerns an intrepid reporter's pursuit of a strange gang of jewel thieves terrorizing Paris. The gang ambitiously seeks political, psychological, and sexual domination of the city's social elite, with the seductive Irma Vep (an anagram of "vampire") as its brazen leader. While slow going at first, the 10-part serial becomes more and more fascinating with each episode, thanks in large part to the alluring Musidora as Irma Vep. Because of her many guises and frightful charms, she truly becomes a vampire of sorts. Feuillade achieves a subversive, nightmarish atmosphere amid the everyday goings-on of the city. Filmed on the streets and back alleys of World War I Paris, the 1915 picture was a huge commercial success, though temporarily banned by Paris's chief of police for glamorizing crime. --Bill Desowitz