I'm going to preempt this by saying I love old silent films. However, this, what is this?! There is next to no dialog in the film. We get short descriptions of the characters as they appear, but good luck telling anyone apart: all the women are doughy and wearing frumpy clothes, all the guys are pudgy and wearing suites. Just look at the pictures here and tell me those dudes aren't identical. I didn't know what the plot was going in, and boy was that a mistake. The movie jumps from one scene to the next, and I was left asking "who is he? Where are they? What's going on?" I'll breakdown the story here - it's pretty simple, but it deserves being mentioned to get an idea of how botched this is. A married man, John Schuyler, leaves his wife for our "vampire" - look, this threw me off; I know about the term vamp as it applies to women with dark features (black hair, brown eyes), and while it would derive from the root word vampire, the two words are not the same. When I saw Theda Bara listed as a "vampire" I was like "is this a vampire movie?" It would seem during the time no one knew what a narcissist was, because that's what she is. Look, the movie is basically a ridiculous cautionary tale - rivaling the absurdity of Reefer Madness (1936) - about the dangers of leaving your family to get some strange. Being well over one-hundred years later, I had to snort at the conservative view. Oh, if only they could see us now. Maybe the weirdest part for me was Schuyler's deterioration. From the start, he was maybe in his forties - which, for this being 1915, means he was basically dead - then he rapidly ages to somewhere in his eighties. Come on! It's a codependent relationship between an anxious preoccupied and a narcissist. That's trouble no matter the situation. I would not recommend this to anyone, classic black and white fans or not. Kids from gen Z or latter millennials would not know what to do with this film. Only an hour long, but it drags. Skip it.
Review by BronsonBlockedParent2024-05-03T20:49:49Z
I'm going to preempt this by saying I love old silent films. However, this, what is this?!
There is next to no dialog in the film. We get short descriptions of the characters as they appear, but good luck telling anyone apart: all the women are doughy and wearing frumpy clothes, all the guys are pudgy and wearing suites. Just look at the pictures here and tell me those dudes aren't identical.
I didn't know what the plot was going in, and boy was that a mistake. The movie jumps from one scene to the next, and I was left asking "who is he? Where are they? What's going on?"
I'll breakdown the story here - it's pretty simple, but it deserves being mentioned to get an idea of how botched this is.
A married man, John Schuyler, leaves his wife for our "vampire" - look, this threw me off; I know about the term vamp as it applies to women with dark features (black hair, brown eyes), and while it would derive from the root word vampire, the two words are not the same. When I saw Theda Bara listed as a "vampire" I was like "is this a vampire movie?" It would seem during the time no one knew what a narcissist was, because that's what she is.
Look, the movie is basically a ridiculous cautionary tale - rivaling the absurdity of Reefer Madness (1936) - about the dangers of leaving your family to get some strange. Being well over one-hundred years later, I had to snort at the conservative view. Oh, if only they could see us now.
Maybe the weirdest part for me was Schuyler's deterioration. From the start, he was maybe in his forties - which, for this being 1915, means he was basically dead - then he rapidly ages to somewhere in his eighties. Come on! It's a codependent relationship between an anxious preoccupied and a narcissist. That's trouble no matter the situation.
I would not recommend this to anyone, classic black and white fans or not. Kids from gen Z or latter millennials would not know what to do with this film. Only an hour long, but it drags. Skip it.