Together, we're going to accomplish great things.
As much as I enjoyed Louis Feuillade's 1916 serial Judex, its immediate predecessor, 1915's Les Vampires, is even better because it spends a lot more time on the exploits of the gang of thieves and murderers it's named after. They, in turn, spend a fair bit of time running around in black hoods and form-fitting outfits, frequently while traipsing over rooftops and scaling buildings, which is more exciting than anything do-gooder Judex ever got to do. The most prominent member of The Vampires, of course, is Musidora's Irma Vep, but she actually takes her orders from The Grand Vampire (Jean Aymé), a title that gets passed on in the event that he is unable to fulfill his duties owing to the fact that he's dead. (After a certain point, The Vampires start going through Grand Vampires the way Spinal Tap goes through drummers.)
Right from the get-go, the First Grand Vampire declares that he means business by decapitating the special investigator in charge of tracking him down, robbing an American millionaire of her money and jewels and then murdering her for good measure, and poisoning a ballerina for having the gall to perform a ballet called The Vampires. The extra motivation for the latter is because she's believed to be the fiancée of crack reporter Philippe Guérande (Édouard Mathé, who went on to play Judex's brother Roger), whose tireless pursuit of The Vampires makes him and anyone close to him a target. Lucky for Phillipe, the amiable Mazamette (Marcel Lévesque, instantly recognizable as Cocantin from Judex), who's only in the gang to support his family, chooses an opportune moment to defect and becomes his staunch ally, albeit one who does a remarkable amount of mugging and takes to the camera.
As the story develops from episode to episode, Feuillade introduces more villains, including rival bandit Juan-José Moréno (Fernand Herrmann), who works under the name The Spectre and becomes a thorn in the side of The Vampires. When Moréno uses his hypnotic powers to win Irma Vep over to his side and has her eliminate The Grand Vampire, though, that merely opens the door for the diabolical Satanas (Louis Leubas) to assume the mantle. (His specialty? Using a portable cannon to blow shit up.) And when Satanas is likewise taken out of the picture, chemist Venemous (Frederik Moriss) is there to take over. One has to wonder, though, why the torch never gets passed to our girl Irma. Is it because she's our girl? I guess even the criminal underworld comes equipped with a glass ceiling.