The Vampires or, The Arch Criminals of Paris

Paris is gripped by a criminal organisation whose members strike without warning and seem beyond the reach of the police. Known as the Vampires, the gang carries out robberies, kidnappings and killings under the direction of two leaders: the Great Vampire and Irma Vep, his accomplice. When a public official is murdered, the journalist Philippe Guérande begins investigating and, together with his associate Mazamette, sets out to expose the gang and end its campaign of violence. The story unfolds across ten episodes.

Louis Feuillade directed and wrote this French crime serial, made for Gaumont. It is the sixth of the seventeen films credited to him in chronological order, arriving between The Dwarf and a later instalment of Judex. The large cast of twenty-two includes Jean Aymé as the Great Vampire, Édouard Mathé as Philippe Guérande, Marcel Lévesque as Mazamette, Théodore Thalès, Rita Herlor and Florense Simoni. At 422 minutes, the serial was built for audiences who returned over many weeks.

A century after its release, Les Vampires draws a critics' rating of 9.4 out of 10 from twenty-two reviews, while audiences rate it 7.3 on IMDb from roughly 5,900 votes and 7 on TMDB from a much smaller group of 126. The gap suggests that critics hold the serial in especially high regard, but that it retains a substantial and favourable public following.