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Death heads revisited, very dark and evil

posted 8 years ago by richspenc
11 replies | jump to latest

This episode has a much deeper evil to it than most other TZ eps. It is different than your fictional story with someone getting shot or murdered. This ep bases its topic on a real life event. One of the most horrible, sick real life events in history. And then we get an evil character who's relishing in his having taken part in it. Just look at the way he acts at the start of the episode at the Inn down the road from his old "campgrounds". The receptionist at the inn has immediately detected a suspition of him being one of the old sadists at the camp. She is totally frightened and he looks to be completely enjoying it. Just look at the smile on his face when he says the word concentration camp. He's completely proud of his history there. And then come the parts where he revisits the camp. Very disturbing stuff.

[–] sevenlilxenos 8 years ago

At the risk of stating the obvious, this ep has to have the most predictable ending in general.

Its not a question of if he gets his pay backs, but rather in what exact form it will take.

They were hunting down and either killing or bringing legal proceeding against Nazi war criminals as early as the '60s with most occurring in the '70s-'90s. I'm kind of surprised this idiot was as brazen as he was.

[–] richspenc 8 years ago

I guess sometimes when those types of people have let it go to thier heads for so long and have gotten away with what they were doing for so long, they start thinking they're invincible. But they're fools and they'll get a taste of thier own medicine. And like you said, he was an idiot for not knowing what was going on now.

[–] strntz 8 years ago

I'm kind of surprised this idiot was as brazen as he was.

A lot of Nazis escaped punishment because they weren't all that well known and their new identities were almost ironclad.

In the case of Capt. Lutze, he *would* have gotten away with it had he only been dealing with mortals, hence his arrogance.

And of course the ending could have been either the ghosts were real, or Capt. Lutze had some sort of buried moral compass that was triggered when he entered the camp and relived memories of his atrocities. His insanity could have been of his own doing. I'd like to think it was the ghosts...

Is very bad to steal Jobu's rum. Is very bad.

[–] richspenc 8 years ago

I'm sure it's most likely the latter, that all of the ghosts including Becker and the trial was all in his head and his tiny bit of morality which was buried so deep during the war and right up to that point, then the bit of morality finally came out and bit him. And it bit him extremely hard considering how vicious, inhumane, and evil what he did was. The real Becker and other men he saw were all killed 17 years earlier, so yes, his experience seeing them while revisiting the camp was all in his mind. Then again, this is the Twilight zone and the ghosts could've been real.

[–] AngularTurnip (3337) 8 years ago

The episode is better off for letting the viewer choose whether justice is coming from within or without; either way, the experience is TZ at its most disturbing.

[–] marka99-1 8 years ago

This is the episode that raises the hair on my neck the most. It is different than most and it's superb.

[–] richspenc 8 years ago

I guess as evil as the man in the episode may seem, the writers still need to show certain elements of truth. And the actor playing the man was only displaying the truth in how some of those Nazis really were. Even with the TZ with all it's supernatural elements, they still need to mix in certain details of truth also to give the episodes the right effect. That's what made many TZ eps so powerful and effective.

[–] DoctorJuliaHoffman 8 years ago

A very grim and eerie episode, to be sure, richspenc.

[–] richspenc 8 years ago

Yeh, it's sad how many men in WW2 Germany were exactly like the evil Nazi officer in this episode, and how many innocent people were tortured and killed.

[–] SilentNightDeadlyNight2807 (28) 8 years ago

Didn't like this episode, it's too dark and heavy. Not really my kind of entertainment.

[–] AngularTurnip (3337) 8 years ago

And to think the episode that aired the week before this one was "It's A Good Life" while "The Midnight Sun" aired the week after. That may just be the grimmest stretch in "Twilight Zone" 's entire run. Serling also wrote all three(well, "Life" he adapted), leaving one to wonder just what was going on in Serling's life that could have put him in such a depressed state of mind.