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TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MASKS (1965) Irony in playing the audience

posted 11 years ago by drystyx
4 replies | jump to latest

Directed by Ida Lupino, and written by Serling, it should have been one of the classic episodes, as these two were noted for works that opposed the very self righteousness and hypocrisy that this episode lauded.

It is a strange piece. An old rich man is dying, and his last wish, his last insane obsession, is to play God with the lives of four relatives he detests. Maybe they are as bad as he says, but all we really see is his insane hypocrisy in a desire to play God. Instead of cutting them out of his will, he instead lures them in to a Hell he designs for them.

One of the sickest things about this episode is that supposedly objective characters are written into the piece to sanction the hateful old man's design.

You can't be a Christian and rate this over 1/10. It looks like Rod Serling either had a vendetta against four people he depicted here, or a vendetta against Christianity. It's hard to see why Ida chose to direct this hateful piece, because it's totally against her usual works in which she seems to be against judgmental behavior and lynch mob mentality.

The other possibility is that Rod and Ida made this a special piece, for the audience to judge themselves. Ironically, in order to praise this piece of hate, you would have to be the very "hate" that you condemned.

This is the ultimate control freak's episode, praising the ultimate control freak. The irony of it is that those who would enjoy this are the very personalities of the four people who are supposed to be so filled with hate. However, we only see hate from the old man. He has a "self fulfilling prophecy" in which he will justify his condemnation of whomever he pleases. We get the impression these four people have always been pushed into a corner by him, and always persecuted by him. He has his mind set, and he gets pleasure out of playing God and making accusations. Are the four greedy? Are they cruel? Are they vain? We only see those attributes out of those who would guffaw and cheer the old man who plays God.

They really dropped the ball on this one. Almost all of what Rod wrote, and almost all of what Ida directed, were potential classics, but this one looked like they were actually making an inside joke against the very people who would enjoy being control freaks.

It doesn't justify the hate of this piece of garbage. Totally sick, for totally sick minds. 1/10

Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time

[–] amyghost 11 years ago

Overreact much?

[–] tmaj48 11 years ago

I liked it.

The four relatives of the old man were nasty, self-absorbed, greedy, hateful
money-grubbers who never gave the old man the time of day until they realized he
was dying; then they came to collect. The grandson tortured small animals for fun;
surely that was enough evidence to prove that he was an evil creep. The others'
vicious comments about how impatient they were for the old man to die was more proof of their malevolent natures. If the old man had really been so awful, his
servants and doctor wouldn't have been so sympathetic towards him and felt the
pity that they did.

I'm not crying, you fool, I'm laughing!

Hewwo.

[–] hiddenagenda1 10 years ago

^^ This.

Volker Flenske: (While torturing David) I don't know why you're doing this to yourself!

[–] kiaora-1 9 years ago

I loved this episode. Yes, it is harsh and cruel. A prestigious and wealthy father who is dying, uses voodoo to punish his family to exact revenge for their greed and lack of loyalty and devotion. A father who was fed up with his selfish and greedy family and wanted to teach them a lesson they were sure to never forget. If anything can be learned from this episode, it is this - Honor thy father and thy mother, also, money is the root of all evil. Of course, the father's actions don't make him any better then his children. At least they didn't resort to harming their father, although they seemed eager for his demise so they could inherit all that was his. This father didn't make his absence make their hearts grow fonder. He likely made his children resent and hate him even that much more. The final lesson of the episode is that it isn't wise or decent to try and exact revenge or karma on others, particularly your own family.