It may be told over the course of 10 episodes, but director Louis Feuillade is looking to give audiences a richer experience than they will find in their usual movie serial. He’s creating cinematic art, art when it was first released in 1915 and art that still stands tall today. The movie tells the story of a journalist (Édouard Mathé) investigating a ruthless criminal organization called Les Vampires. The stories he prints in the paper every day not only set a fire under the police to do something, but force the criminals to try and stop him before he can write any more. It’s boilerplate thriller stuff for the most part, but Feuillade pushes the envelope whenever he can – one can only imagine how audiences reacted to seeing a severed head in a box on screen back in 1915. The artistry of the movie peaks when the lovely and deadly assassin Irma Vep (Musidora) splashes seductively onto the screen.
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