The First Cinematic Zombies Were Part of a Powerful Anti-War Film (2024)

Today, zombies are some of the most popular horror movie monsters. Since Night of the Living Dead, they’ve ceaselessly shambled after protagonists’ brains across countless titles. However, the concept is even older than Romero’s late-60s classic. In 1932, Victor Halperin introduced audiences to the living dead in White Zombie. But even that film had a predecessor. Even earlier, in 1919, French director Abel Gance’s J’Accuse (literally I Accuse) showcased a then-revolutionary concept. A horde of undead soldiers silently marched across cinema screens, though they were unlike any other horrifying monsters of the time.

These monsters didn’t thirst for blood, so they weren’t vampires. However, they were also too solid to be ghosts. Instead, they were single-minded beasts from beyond the grave. By all definitions, these beings were what modern audiences would call a zombie. But there’s one final trick up Gance’s sleeve, and it’s why J’Accuse is often overlooked in horror film history. Despite its revolutionary premise, J’Accuse never portrayed itself as a horror film. In fact, Abel Gance imagined the film as an anti-war romantic drama. Even the 1938 “talkie” remake retained the same genre distinction, offering little more than additional sounds and updated visuals.

How J’Accuse Spawned a Horror Legacy

• Despite his instance that J’Accuse is a drama film, portions of the 1938 remake are featured in a 1998 documentary on Universal Horror.
• Gance devised the basic plot of J’Accuse while working as a military videographer in the opening years of World War 1.
• Neither Abel Gance nor anyone in J’Accuse ever uses the word “zombie.”

Both J'accuse films primarily revolve around a standard love triangle. François Laurin (Séverin-Mars in 1919 and Marcel Delaître in 1938) is unhappily married to Édith (Maryse Dauvray in 1919 and Line Noro in 1938). To escape her husband’s frequent abuse, Édith engages in a poorly-hidden affair with François’ best friend, Jean Diaz (Romauld Joubé in 1919 and Victor Francen in 1938).

The bulk of each film’s two-and-a-half-hour runtime is devoted to this love triangle. Both men bicker and fight, but their shared wartime experiences prevent the personal conflict from escalating further than verbal spats. While the 1919 film occurs in a vague and non-specific war, the 1938 remake explicitly references World War 1. Regardless, François is killed, and Jean is wounded in battle in both versions of J’Accuse.

Shellshocked, Jean tells villagers of his traumatic battlefield experience before invoking the names of the dead. Amid a raging storm, he raises his fallen and wounded friends from their graves. The proto-zombies then return to the village, where their wounded and mutilated forms horrify surviving family members. The resulting shockwaves lead to global outcry, and world leaders convene to abolish war.

Differences in the 1938 Remake

• Coincidentally, the remake hit French cinemas on October 30, 1938.
• Gance filmed the remake between May and August 1937.
• The 1938 remake is an hour shorter than the original J’Accuse.

Notably, thanks to the years between J’Accuse and its remake, the updated version adds content to reflect the interwar zeitgeist. In the original film, Jean’s proto-zombie revival occurs immediately after the penultimate battle. However, Gance integrated the Armistice into his remake.

In both films, Édith is raped and impregnated on the homefront. Her daughter, Angèle (Angèle Guys), is little more than an impetus for further violence in the 1919 version. However, the 1938 remake gives the child more screen time. In this version, her daughter — renamed Helene (Renée Devillers) — sits atop a new love triangle. Jean forms one leg. The second is Henri Chimay (Jean-Max), the general responsible for François’ death.

Eventually, the romantic drama combines with the pain of Jean’s old wounds, driving him insane. As in the original film, he flees to a cemetery and pleads for his fallen friends to return. From this point, both films reconvene and meet at the same narrative ending.

The Zombies of J’Accuse Set the Stage for Future Hordes of the Undead

• Gance described the film as “against war” rather than outright pacifist.
• Many of the editing techniques Gance used in the 1919 version would be refined and recycled in his later films.
• The 1919 version of J’Accuse used 2,000 active soldiers on leave from Verdun. After filming, many returned to battle, and — per Gance’s statements — around 80% were killed.

Now, this is where things get technical. Despite film historians’ implications of J’Accuse as a zombie film, Gance never saw it as such. Instead, he insisted that J’Accuse was a pure condemnation of war and human suffering. He envisioned the film as a fervent dissection of war’s devastation. However, the result is undeniably zombie-adjacent.

Gance’s undead are the first cinematic appearance of the zombie’s most basic traits. They may lack a lust for human brains and voodoo roots, but their presentation is otherwise on brand. While the original film emphasizes the undead mob’s mortal detachments with bandaged faces and splinted limbs, the 1938 remake goes a step further.

At the cusp of World War 2, Gance enlisted visibly scarred World War 1 veterans to portray his vengeful army. Colloquially known as “les gueules cassées” — “broken faces” — these extras create explicit horror to an otherwise implicitly terrifying scene. Categorically, this also adds a level of body horror not seen in the horde’s original incarnation, pushing the shambling army even closer to stereotypical zombies.

The Emotional Plight of Abel Gance’s “Zombies”

• Facially scarred World War 1 veterans were entitled to significant compensation for their injuries.
• Gance was injured while serving as a war videographer.
• Some facial injuries were too severe to conceal fully. Soldiers often donned masks in these cases, as portrayed by Boardwalk Empire’s Richard Harrow.

At the same time, the inclusion of veterans also adds an emotional weight not usually seen in stereotypical zombie films. However, modern spins have resurrected Gance’s pathos-laden vision of the undead — as seen in The Last of Us and The Walking Dead. Whereas classic zombie films often rely on slasher-adjacent violence, those following Gance’s vision focus on the inherent trauma of reliving death.

For Gance, the “zombies” weren’t mindless monsters. They were human beings, young men snuffed out in their prime on meat grinder battlefields. Each shambling corpse represented the plight of European infantry. It’s not as if the messaging is subtle, either. In J’Accuse, each fallen soldier’s homecoming is an act of emotional terrorism. Their bloodied, scarred faces peer from the depths of unresolved grief, gouging open fresh emotional wounds.

The opening of the 1919 film uses 2,000 soldiers to spell the title across an open field. Gance commanded the regiments without revealing his intentions and denounced the military brass when confronted. In his own words, he proclaimed his film to be a condemnation of war, which he deemed “universal stupidity.”

While the poignancy of J’Accuse would take decades to stick to pop culture zombie media, the basic premise wormed its way into the public consciousness. More importantly, the visual markers of a “zombie” can be traced to Gance’s vision: mangled hands bursting from the soil to scratch at the heavens, mutilated bodies rising from the mud, and shuffling corpses flooding streets.

J'Accuse in America

• Gance’s later works, La Roue and Napoleon, would also be heavily censored before their American release.
• J’Accuse received plenty of international attention and praise. Contemporary reviewers hailed its message and content, although it remained a widely European phenomenon.
• Like many foreign films, J’Accuse was widely dismissed by American distributors.

So, why is J’Accuse rarely mentioned in horror circles? Its most obvious point is its self-proclaimed classification. The majority of J’Accuse is devoted to a dramatic love triangle, and the 1938 remake doubles down on the premise. A similar scenario can be found in Lord of the Rings. Despite being heavily influenced by Tolkien’s war experiences, the fantasy epic is still rightfully considered a fantasy series instead of a war drama. Both works set out on defined paths. J’Accuse makes itself into an emotional anti-war love story, and Lord of the Rings fashions itself as a high fantasy legend.

However, it’s also worth considering the film’s lackluster American release. Despite the film’s European success, the 1919 version would take two years to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Moreover, it fell into the hands of an unscrupulous editor with an eye for profit. America’s apparent success in the war efforts had amplified domestic patriotism and silenced any popular sentiments of pacifism.

Under the direction of United Artists, Gance’s masterpiece was slaughtered for its parts. The resulting borderline parody, wholly stripped of its intellect, was released as I Accuse in October 1921. Editors ripped out any mentions of pacifism, replacing them with segments dedicated to blind patriotism. Journalists privy to the uncensored preview skewered the release, with The New York Times declaring United Artists had “emasculated” the film beyond recognition.

Not surprisingly, American audiences were indifferent to I Accuse, and Gance’s masterpiece fell into stateside obscurity. Unfortunately, this slapdash film butchery was standard practice in America for decades. J’Accuse may be one of the most infamous examples of the system’s failure, but ideological scrubbing succeeded when applied to Godzilla.

Fortunately, the American editing team’s damage didn’t tarnish the film’s European release. Its visuals inspired a new genre of pacifist filmmakers and cerebral horror writers. Yet, interestingly enough, America claims the title for the first definitive zombie film. White Zombie, a 1932 United Artists horror film, may have been inspired by voodoo rituals, but its visual stylings bear many of Gance’s larger-than-life hallmarks.