[Stingy Jack]

Okay, it's been well over a week since this came out on video in the States ... so any horror fan worth his/her ass should have seen it by now. Therefore, I am going to discuss what I think really happened to Y Company in that film right now.

WARNING!!!!
Spoilers ahead! If you haven't seen Deathwatch, and don't want to know how it ends, don't read any further.




I think that Y Company died in the battle shown at the beginning of the film. You have to admit, it looked like they were getting their asses kicked, and the film never showed how they survived. It merely fades to them walking in fog, trying to find their way out. They stumble through the fog, overtake the trench (I am not going to go into unnecessary details, because I am assuming that you have already watched this film) and discover a radio. As they attempt to contact HQ with the radio, they hear a static-filled message saying: "Y Company .... No survivors ... " The Company believes that HQ assumes they are dead because they could not be found. But, in actuality, they are dead. There really are no survivors from the battle. The idea that they died in battle is also supported by the scene towards the end, where Shakespeare is wandering about in the tunnels beneath the trench. He comes across the spirits of his fellow soldiers, all of them already killed by the trench. Among them, however, is Shakespeare's own spirit. He is confused, and says "But I'm not dead," thinking he's the sole survivor of the trench. But, he really IS dead ... he died in battle with the other men, then came with them to the trench.

This trench is like a Purgatory for soldiers. Purgatory, if you haven't brushed up on your Catholicism, is the place where people go when they die who have not committed sins grievous enough to warrant the hell punishment, but still need to cleanse their souls before entering heaven. Once the soul has sufferred enough in Purgatory, it will be sent on its' way to heaven.

The horrors of the trench are meant to test the members of Y Company, to see if they are "Heaven Material", or should be sent to hell. They turn on each other, kill each other, are killed in nasty ways by the ghosts of the trench, and almost all of them do not make it out. Except for Shakespeare. When Y Company overtook the trench, they took one German soldier hostage. All of the soldiers in Y Company abused, ignored the abuse of, and basically mistreated this lone German, except for Shakespeare. He was the only one who tried to help him. This is given to us at the end of the film, when it is only the German hostage and Shakespeare left. The hostage points a loaded rifle at Shakespeare, and Shakespeare says: "Why? I didn't hurt you. I tried to help you." The hostage says: "Yes. You were the only one," then motions to a nearby ladder, giving Shakespeare the sign to leave. Shakespeare climbs the ladder and goes ... to heaven. He passed the test of the trench, and is allowed to enter paradise. The other members, however, were not so lucky.

As the film ends, we see a scene of a new group of soldiers, discovering the trench in the exact same way as Y Company did (with one of them accidentally sinking their boot into a rotten corpse.) They see the lone German soldier in the trench, and order him to put his hands on his head. As he does so, the camera zooms in on his face, and he grins. End credits.

This shows that the German hostage is a supernatural entity (well, that and the fact that his wounds completely healed in a very short period of time) and we can assume that he is the entity in charge of the Purgatorial trench. The soldiers who arrive at the end of the film are a new group of newly dead soldiers, all ready to be tested by the hostage.