Top-Tier Alternatives In the Shadow of Anita: Cult Guide

Dir: Fred Stranz

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: Jacob Fleck

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Die Tragödie auf Schloss Rottersheim perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dir: Julius Herska

France in the late 1600s, the son of a widowed lord is kidnapped by gypsies, who carve a permanent grin on the child's face. When the deformed boy grows up, he falls in love with a blind girl named Dea, and joins a touring company as a performer. Calling himself Gwynplaine, he develops an act in which he reveals his hideous face to the crowds for money. A sexually perverse, seductive socialite named Josiane becomes attracted to him and seeks to possess him.

Dir: Jan S. Kolár

Richard Bor brings his neighbor, the landowner Drazicky, an old book. The latter tries in vain to persuade his wife Dagmar to leave. In the book Drazicky finds the story of the Mystery of the Black Tower and he falls asleep. He goes into the tower and finds an alchemist's laboratory and the body of a man holding instructions describing how he can be revived. Drazicky successfully carries out the experiment and finds out that the man is his ancestor Jesek Drazicky who lived during the time of Rudolf II. He had become the apprentice of the alchemist Borro who had entrusted him with the mystery of the elixir of life.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Man Who Laughs perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dir: Jacob Fleck

A fascinating piece of cinema that shares thematic elements.

Dir: Urban Gad

A loose and unofficial silent adaptation of H. G. Wells' The Island Of Dr. Moreau.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of The Arrival from the Darkness perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dir: Rudolf Liebscher

A mad scientist, an Indian fakir and a Japanese conman walk into a lab - and try to resurrect a dead alchemist in order to discover the secret of creating gold.

Dir: Eugenio Testa

The Italian adaptation of the famous novel about Dr. Frankenstein and his monstrous creation.

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of Mit Herz und Hand fürs Vaterland perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Dir: Maurice Elvey

Sherlock Holmes comes to the aid of his friend Henry Baskerville, who is under a family curse and menaced by a demonic dog that prowls the bogs near his estate and murders people.

Dir: Károly Lajthay

A girl has frightening visions after visiting an insane asylum where one of the inmates claims to be Drakula and she can not be sure whether they were a nightmare or real.