Movieline is excited to welcome Alonso Duralde back to the pages of this site with a new regular feature we’re calling High and Low. Every week, the dauntless Duralde will wade through the mind-numbing number of home-entertainment choices out there and recommend two must-see releases: His first pick will be geared for cineastes looking for essential viewing. His second will be aimed at movie lovers seeking out the highest form of guilty pleasure available: the offbeat, the campy, the kitschy and the just plain wacky. Take it away, Alonso:
HIGH: Les Vampires (Kino Classics; $34.95 DVD/$39.95 Blu-Ray)
Who’s Responsible: Written and directed by Louis Feuillade; starring Musidora, Édouard Mathé, Marcel Lévesque.
What It’s All About: Consisting of 10 serialized chapters, such as “The Severed Head” and “Satanus,” Feuillade’s silent 1915 crime drama follows journalist Philipe (played by Mathé) as he attempts to investigate the notorious syndicate known as The Vampires. (Sorry, Twilight fans, no blood-sucking here.) Over the course of this epic, which has been strung together as a single six-hour-and-40-minute (approximately) movie, we get murder, robbery, identity theft, poison rings, codebooks, gas attacks, paralysis drugs and orgies. What’s not to like?
Why it’s Schmancy: Critics of the era despised Les Vampires — even in 1915, crime stories were considered old-fashioned and beneath Feuillade’s abilities — but the serial was embraced by André Breton and other founders of the Surrealist movement, particularly for the way that Feuillade combined a very realistic portrayal of Paris’ streets and sewers with his fantastic tale of masked bandits and their over-the-top skullduggery. More recent fans include Olivier Assayas, whose 1996 Irma Vep featured Hong Kong superstar Maggie Cheung (playing herself) coming to Paris to star in a remake. (Sexy assassin Irma Vep — played by Musidora in the original — is one of the key…
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