Ingmar Bergman's "The Serpent's Egg" follows the life of Abel Rosenberg, an unemployed American circus acrobat living in poverty-stricken Berlin following World War I. When his brother commits suicide, Abel seeks refuge in the apartment of an old acquaintance Professor Veregus. Desperate to make ends meet in the war-ravaged city, Abel takes a job at Professor Veregus' clinic, where he discovers the horrific truth behind the work of the strangely beneficent professor and uncovers the chilling mystery that drove his brother to kill himself.