A man gets caught in a rain storm while on a "walking trip" in Europe, and he knocks on the first door he comes across, looking for food and shelter but finds instead, as Serling love to say, the outer edges of the twilight zone. It's interesting that the man isn't perturbed at all by the fact that the people in the house he comes to are all dressed in what can only be called biblical garb, with staffs and long robes. Maybe he was distracted by the even stranger way that they refused him and meant to send him back out into the rainy night. Not the kind of thing you would expect from a religious group.
This is the most overtly religious episode of the twilight zone that I've seen, but it never becomes preachy or anything like that, which is good. It seems that these people have captured the devil and have him imprisoned in a room in that house, rendering him powerless to harm people, little more than a howling man.
I was reminded of the old phrase 'the greatest thing the devil ever did was convincing the world he didn't exist' (which, no offense to anyone of any belief, always strikes me as a little bit of religious propaganda), because that's what the howling man does in the episode. The wanderer hears the man and sneaks back to his cell, and the howling man begs for his help in escaping from these lunatics who are imprisoning him.
Probably the best thing that the episode does is present an idea of what would really happen were Satan (or Jesus) to actually appear on earth. Naturally, it's the people with the robes and staffs that seem crazy, and the poor guy suffering in the cell seems like the victim. I have always had a sneaking suspicion that if rapture did occur, Jesus may very well find himself throw into an asylum of some sort.
The question that may arise from this is What asylum could possibly hold him? But I asked the same question about the devil in this episode, and one other IMDb user mentioned that he is locked in the room using a staff of light and truth, which is the perfect explanation. Once again, the episode scores big.
Of course, the devil is very convincing, and manages to escape and then, in the show's most impressive sequence, gradually transforms back into the healthy devil himself, much to the dismay of the unassuming man who just set him free. Thereafter, he makes it his life's work to capture the devil and put him back in prison where he belongs.
Cut back to the beginning of the episode (the whole show is told as a flashback), and you have the only big problem with it. Admittedly, it's not a huge problem, because it happens right at the very end of the episode, but he commits the same enormous mistake that the first captors did in their lax security measures.
I would think that if you had Satan locked up in a room in your house, you might want to arrange his captivity in such a way so that a wanderer off the street couldn't just sneak in and have a conversation with him. Similarly, if you find yourself with Satan in captivity, especially after having set him free once already, you may not want to leave the responsibility for his captivity in the hands of your house maid. Oops.
Nevertheless, this is still one of the most well-developed and interesting episodes of the twilight zone that I've seen, and is a great example of how good the show can be.
This is the most overtly religious episode of the twilight zone that I've seen, but it never becomes preachy or anything like that, which is good. It seems that these people have captured the devil and have him imprisoned in a room in that house, rendering him powerless to harm people, little more than a howling man.
I was reminded of the old phrase 'the greatest thing the devil ever did was convincing the world he didn't exist' (which, no offense to anyone of any belief, always strikes me as a little bit of religious propaganda), because that's what the howling man does in the episode. The wanderer hears the man and sneaks back to his cell, and the howling man begs for his help in escaping from these lunatics who are imprisoning him.
Probably the best thing that the episode does is present an idea of what would really happen were Satan (or Jesus) to actually appear on earth. Naturally, it's the people with the robes and staffs that seem crazy, and the poor guy suffering in the cell seems like the victim. I have always had a sneaking suspicion that if rapture did occur, Jesus may very well find himself throw into an asylum of some sort.
The question that may arise from this is What asylum could possibly hold him? But I asked the same question about the devil in this episode, and one other IMDb user mentioned that he is locked in the room using a staff of light and truth, which is the perfect explanation. Once again, the episode scores big.
Of course, the devil is very convincing, and manages to escape and then, in the show's most impressive sequence, gradually transforms back into the healthy devil himself, much to the dismay of the unassuming man who just set him free. Thereafter, he makes it his life's work to capture the devil and put him back in prison where he belongs.
Cut back to the beginning of the episode (the whole show is told as a flashback), and you have the only big problem with it. Admittedly, it's not a huge problem, because it happens right at the very end of the episode, but he commits the same enormous mistake that the first captors did in their lax security measures.
I would think that if you had Satan locked up in a room in your house, you might want to arrange his captivity in such a way so that a wanderer off the street couldn't just sneak in and have a conversation with him. Similarly, if you find yourself with Satan in captivity, especially after having set him free once already, you may not want to leave the responsibility for his captivity in the hands of your house maid. Oops.
Nevertheless, this is still one of the most well-developed and interesting episodes of the twilight zone that I've seen, and is a great example of how good the show can be.