Holy shit, *Nightcrawlers*...

I'm a huge fan of the 80's *Twilight Zone* reboot, but I've only seen a handful of them. One of these days, I'll get my hands on the DVD set and plow through them.

But man, this story...fuck. I actually read it for the first time a few years ago in the horror anthology *Masques* which, if you aren't familiar, is one of the single best horror anthology collections ever committed to paper. But the whole time I was reading it, I could *not* shake the feeling that I'd seen this on the screen somewhere.

I chalked it up to its minor similarity to an episode of *The X-Files* from season 2 called *Sleepless*, where Tony Todd (*Candyman*) plays a Vietnam veteran who hasn't slept in over two decades thanks to an experiment conducted on him and other members of his platoon to turn them into super soldiers.

But I never thought that was quite right. I had distinct memories of scenes taking place in a small-town diner with a ferocious gun battle and helicopters, none of which appear in *Sleepless*. I must have caught this episode, or at least part of it, as a kid when it ran on TV, and just repressed the memory.

Because, yeah, *Nightcrawlers* is one savage-as-fuck story, and this is *easily* one of the most savage episodes of *Twilight Zone* I've ever seen. Viewed as an adult, it's pretty easy to enjoy on its own merits, but man, I know this gave me nightmares as a child. :)