The Essential Watchlist that Capture the Essence of The Zone of Death: Cult Guide

Dir: Abel Gance

Dr. Hobson is a humanist scientist who studies snakes. He saves Maud, a young American girl, who is abused by Ted, a violent snake hunter. But when the First World War begins, Hobson is summoned by the French army to invent deadly gases.

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

Dir: Abel Gance

Sad story of an unfaithful wife and her subsequent sufferings as a mother.

Dir: Abel Gance

A visual fragment from the archive: The thematic resonance of La dixième symphonie perfectly mirrors the editorial trajectory of our deep dive.

Composer Enrid Damor knows nothing of the past life of his new wife Eve Dinant : she lived as a debauchee with an adventurer, Fred Ryce. Fred Ryce meets Damor's daughter, Claire, and tries to marries her. He blackmails Eve. Enric learns something about her and Fred and composes a symphony to express his pain... A melodrama.

Dir: Abel Gance

A film about the French general's youth and early military career.

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

Dir: Abel Gance

Max accepts a wager that he cannot remain in a haunted castle for one hour (11 PM to midnight) without crying for help. As soon as he arrives he encounters strange and nightmarish visions, but he is nevertheless on the verge of winning the bet when a phone-call brings startling news . . .

Dir: Abel Gance

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

A railway engineer adopts a young girl orphaned by a train crash. Years later when she starts getting suitors, he grapples with whether or not to tell her the truth about her parentage.

Dir: Abel Gance

The story of two men, one married, the other the lover of the other's wife, who meet in the trenches of the First World War, and how their tale becomes a microcosm for the horrors of war.