I saw this movie at a time when I was beginning to question the importance of fitting in, while most kids my age were still desperately seeking to belong. Many may argue otherwise, but I saw it as an ABC Afterschool Special.
The plot of this movie has already been explained enough here, and the incidents are based on a true story -- A group of high school kids wonder how people in Germany could fall for the lies of Adolf Hitler, and inadvertently become pawns in a teacher's experiment that clearly displays how. Of course, the truth is that even militaristic fringe groups like the National Socialist German Worker's Party, and similar organizations aren't the only groups that feed upon the alleged human need to belong to force their collective will on people. Any youth-oriented clique can be repressive and destructive, but the only ones parents and other adults seem to fear are the burnouts and gangs. Jocks, preppies, and even geeks can be just as repressive. Four years later in THE BREAKFAST CLUB, when Molly Ringwald told Judd Nelson "Only burnouts like you get high," the truth about a bunch of Metro New York preppies and THEIR drug habits were being revealed after one of them killed his girlfriend in Central Park.
What makes this movie so special is that it urges teenagers to decide their own values, hold onto them, and never to fall into the trap of "group-think." Nearly 15 years earlier, a fictional teacher made a similar observation -- "If you deny who you are, what you know, or who you know, you deny the simplest part of being alive, and then you die." More than 20 years later, a two-dimensional teenage girl would say it so much better --"Stand firm for what you believe in, until and unless logic and experience proves you wrong." Good lessons for all.