red-2

This 1915 French mystery serial is fascinating. Its device of using gadgets (poison rings, poison fountain pens, cabinets with fake back panels, etc.) predates James Bond's by decades, and makes each new episode something to look forward to. The comely Irma Vep is one of the most mysterious and darkest screen heroines of all times. The filmmaker makes extensive use of real Parisian street locations, which seem always, oddly, to be drained of pedestrian life; watching "Les Vampires" is like getting into a time machine.

View "Les Vampires" first, then see "Irma Vep" (France, 1996) so you have a point of reference.

I thoroughly enjoyed this rather gothic tale of a young woman's love affair with an obsessive connoisseur of beauty, who believes he's loved her before in a past life. The Venetian costume party is certainly a high point, visually, of the picture. The whole film is strangely reminiscent of Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast, primarily because of eerily smooth camera movement and the elaborate castle setting. How can any romantic not enjoy a murderous love story that ends in Madame Tussaud's wax museum?