THE MIRACLE OF THE WOLVES (1924) cost an absolute fortune and most of the money went into epic medieval warfare. The gore and use of handheld cameras make the combat scenes seem remarkably modern.

I love low budget filmmaking, don't get me wrong, but when a silent movie is like "How much money? ALL THE MONEY???" there's nothing that quite compares.

Like the full-size ship-to-ship warfare in THE SEA HAWK.

Or "WE'LL JUST RENT THE ENTIRE COUNTRY OF LATVIA, ARMY INCLUDED" in MICHAEL STROGOFF.

BEN-HUR was, arguably, the most expensive epic of all but I should add the caveat that it was basically scrapped and restarted from scratch twice so not all the money made it to the screen.

There's a heft to silent movies that you don't see in films of any other era. Yes, there were matte shots and hanging miniatures but there was also a lot of "You know what, we're just GOING TO EGYPT FOR OUR SPHINX SHOOT, OKAY???"

But even more impressive to me is the "BUILD EVERYTHING FULL-SIZE AND ALSO POSSIBLY BURN IT" thing they had going.

The motto of silent movies is "Just do it!"

Same with the stunts. Yes, they did have tricks at their disposal but at a certain point, you just have to leap from moving car to moving car in the middle of Russia with no stuntman.

What I'm saying is that it takes a lot, and I mean A LOT, for a modern movie to impress me with its scope and scale.

Me: Why should I be impressed by your new movie?

Filmmaker: Why, it's epic!

Me: Did you rent an entire Baltic state? Did you build full-size ships & have them ram one another? Did you construct and burn an old west town with the leading man inside?

Filmmaker: We used CGI!

Me:

Usual Disclaimer: Nothing against CGI when used tastefully and well but one does tire of airless 100% green screen affairs.

When I, a vampire, am telling you to go outside more, you should listen.