"What you saw is not a man. It is the Devil himself!"
Director: Douglas Heyes
Writer: Charles Beaumont
Composer: Stock music
This is probably one of the more religious episodes of The Twilight Zone to date and features not just a good twist but also a great message to go along with it, one that is, again, mired with religious tones and ideas. The episode also features some absolutely amazing atmosphere, with a rich Gothic feel to the entire thing, be it the sets or the way that the episode is lit (it is also shot rather uniquely, too). A couple of great performances tack on to make this one an episode not quickly forgotten.
"The Howling Man" is about one David Ellington (H.M. Wynant) finding a large castle hermitage in Central Europe while he's ill and starving. He manages to get entrance into the castle and collapses shortly after meeting the leader of the group there, Brother Jerome (John Carradine). He also encounters a single man in a cell, one who howls like a wolf and begs to be let free (Robin Hughes). As Jerome tries to explain the situation with the howling man and why he is being so secretive, Ellington must decide whether or not he believes in Jerome, or if he will follow his gut to try and free the prisoner.
While it would make sense that the howling man is the focus of the episode, in truth he is merely a focal point, a stepping stool with which everything else bounces off of. If Ellington had no followed his curiosity toward the howling, it's likely everything else would have been brushed under the table. In truth Ellington isn't all that great a player in what happens at the Hermitage until near the end of the episode, instead, he is merely a recipient of a ton of information all at once.
But that doesn't mean Wynant gives him a poor performance; while it seems that Ellington is not being given much to work with, it's actually quite compelling to watch him struggle with the illness he's battling and all of the things that are flying as fast as possible at him. Wynant portrays Ellington as a man caught off balance, a man who has no idea what to make of anything and is really just running off of his gut feelings. It's easy to get on his side in that regard, since, as an audience member, these things are just as perplexing and off-putting.
It's a good performance, especially with his line deliveries. His voice is shaky and uncertain, almost as if he's trying not to say the wrong thing because these freaky cultists might crack him over the head with their staffs. And given how Brother Jerome acts, it's not entirely hard to believe that.
When Brother Jerome is giving his monologue about their purpose and the nature of the howling man, Carradine is going all-in on the over-the-top presentation. Both passion and insanity are present while Jerome tries to explain to Ellington what is happening, and it's quite clear that this is all just way too much to throw at a person, but it's also quite necessary. It's an odd predicament to be in, and it's one that relies on trusting someone else to believe you.
Carradine's acting as Brother Jerome is one of the large reasons why it's so difficult to get a read on if these guys are serious or if they are just super silly. Jerome is the main character from the Brotherhood of Truth that we meet, although some of the others are a bit shady as well, moving in sync with one another and just having that cultist vibe to them. It's unsettling on first seeing it, and all of the actors do a wonderful job in conveying the necessary tone that the story is going for.
One of the more noticeable aspects of the episode is the camerawork. It moves around a lot, keeping the main characters in the middle of the frame but swaying around, almost as if you, as the audience, are on a boat. Heyes keeps things at weird, slanted angles, always giving us that vibe that something is clearly off. It's noticeable mostly when Ellington seems to be struggling to breathe or stops to catch his breath, giving us an inside look into his mind and how he is feeling without him needing to say any dialogue or really do much of anything besides breathe and look a little strange.
The camerawork sets up the unsettling atmosphere almost as much as the set itself does. The Gothic castle set works wonderfully to set the mood for what's to come. It's incredibly jarring not just from a normal set perspective, but from what audiences are used to in the Twilight Zone. It's something more out of a fantasy story than the typical science fiction, and so, from a meta perspective, it tells the audience that this is something new, something they have not yet experienced on the show.
The castle setting also allows us to fall for the stranger things about the episode, like the iron-barred cell or just the concept of the Brotherhood of Truth. They don't seem so out of place as much as Ellington does, as he is a modern man (for the time) that seems to almost have been thrust back in time the way things look. Another rather Gothic aspect to this all, one that lends itself to the tone and feel of all this, are the heavy shadows that linger along the wall and over everyone's head. It keeps it so nothing is certain, that there is always something else hidden that we, and by extension Ellington, cannot see.
Uncertainty is certainly the name of the game for this one. Ellington is caught between a very innocent sounding man and a group of men who look like Biblical Isrealites preaching that the man in the cage is indeed the Devil himself, barred only by some apparently magic stick called the staff of truth. It's easy to see which side to choose immediately, and Ellington is a man of logic, but the risk factor of that man being the Devil is a magnificent one. And it's clear that Ellington wants to believe the man is innocent, but, if he isn't and he frees the Devil? What sort of horror could that bring?
The religious undertones of the episode come mostly in the conversation between Ellington and Jerome in the middle of the episode. Jerome even points out that he looks like a religious zealot, but claims that he does things only in the name of truth, and will stop Satan because he is the king of lies. The idea of faith in God, or faith in God's chosen people, is one that runs rampant throughout the Bible and one that appears here as well, although it's difficult to call Jerome God.
While the Hebrew God is perhaps one that is a bit more inclusive, having his "chosen people" and all that, the Christian God is one who is a lot more forgiving, someone who is willing to open up a seat at the table. Jerome falls more under that of the Hebrew God, and therefore it makes a bit more sense for him to resemble Moses more than Jesus. Jerome initially passes off Ellington as he sees him as a risk, someone who may open the door for Satan. In doing so, he shuts out Ellington, who is not one of the chosen few.
Later on, though, Jerome's mentality switches as he reveals more about how he caught the howling man and he comes to put a little faith in Ellington, hoping that this faith is restored. This more matches the religious, or at least Christian, idea of trusting in a God that you cannot understand. God is incomprehensible in his reasoning (the whole "The Lord works in mysterious ways" thing) and Jerome is no different, preaching a good argument but with nothing to really back it up. It's almost as if it is a commentary on faith itself.
"The Howling Man" is an episode no religious person or religious studies person should miss out on, and if you're a fan of some good suspense and Gothic Fiction, definitely check this one out. It keeps you guessing and thinking all the way through, and does quite often make you wonder what you would do in Ellington's situation?
***SPOILER SECTION***
The framing device of Ellington talking to his maid is a pretty interesting, if not a bit flimsy, one. While it is jarring at first that the episode opens with him talking directly to the camera, it does immediately put the audience on edge and gives off an intense tone. Wynant's performance is remarkable in his opening monologue explaining the story he will tell, as it makes you wonder if this is all just the thoughts of a madman or not.
I don't really have an issue with the ending, and I mean the very end, not the twist of the howling man turning out to be Satan. The closing narration makes it quite clear that Satan will always escape as long as he can play the role of an innocent man. He is the ultimate king of lies, as Jerome said, and humanity has been falling for it since their creation. His ultimate power and evil is the ability to seem so innocent, to prey upon humanity's inherent desire to help others. It's a very thought-provoking message to leave off on.
Further watches of the episode aren't too helpful, it just makes the twist that much more obvious, but also allows the mind to flow into those thought-provoking themes and ideas that the episode wants to present. It allows us to see that despite Jerome's madness, he is correct; so, maybe it isn't madness at all, maybe he's just a very passionate person about all of this.
"The Howling Man" resonates with me so much because of how much I have to think about it, how much thought I put into it and how many different avenues of discussion it can lead down. There's philosophy and religion, moral and ethics, and from the standpoint of craft, just some really good directing and acting on display here.
It's a great episode because it executes on every single aspects of its creation so well, and blends things together so uniquely, thus allowing for new mixtures and ideas to be tossed out. It's clearly an episode that was created with the intention of leaving a lasting impression and one that can be viewed by multiple people regardless of creed. It puts us in the shoes of a man tasked with what must seem to be an impossible choice, and forces us to realize that in all likelihood, we would also open the door to let the howling man out.
And so we've come to it at last, the final episode of the original Twilight Zone for this October takeover of the blog. It's one I've never discussed before, but it's a famous one, one that most everyone knows. And it isn't just my favorite episode of The Twilight Zone, but one of my favorite episodes of television and favorite pieces of writing ever created. It's one of the greatest mysteries ever told, and it's one that makes us beg the one seemingly simple question, "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?"
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