The story is permeated by a sense of nostalgia for the pre-World War Two Germany. Beaumont begins the story by referring to “The Germany of that time,” and he later writes, “I feel it’s quite important to remember how completely Paradisical the land was then.” Beaumont equates pre-war Germany with a fairy tale paradise he refers to his crossing of the Belgium-German border as moving through an “invisible door, into a kingdom of winds and light”. It’s almost pleasant: “The Germany of that time was a land of valleys and mountains and swift dark rivers, a green and fertile land where everything grew tall and straight out of the earth.”
His casual account of bicycling through Belgium and Germany draws the reader in like a travelogue. It is a perfect illustration of the adage that the “road to hell is paved with good intentions”.īeaumont sets up the allegory by establishing pre-war Germany as Eden. Ellington’s desire for the knowledge of good and evil is his downfall in doing a perceived good he brings evil into the world. “The Howling Man ” is an effort to come to terms with the individual’s role in releasing evil into the world, using weird elements to explain the rise of Hitler in Europe. Beaumont, an existential Christian, plots a thinly veiled allegory of the Christian account of creation, where sin enters the world due to the temptation of man by the devil. The young man is faced with a crisis of conscience does he release him or do nothing, which would surely mean the man’s death? While the monks tell him not to release the man because he is the Devil, the man cries that it is only because of his sexual transgressions that he has been imprisoned. In Germany he falls ill and is taken to a monastery where a “howling man” is locked in a prison. In Charles Beaumont’s “The Howling Man”, a Bostonian named David Ellington bicycles his way across Europe during the inter-war period. Stay for long enough and you might hear the howls of the Abbey’s longest residing guest… Set in a picturesque German valley, the Abbey boasts dirty floors, straw beds and eccentric monks who refuse to answer your most basic questions.
Wulfran’s is quite possibly the worst literary hostel in the world. Adam Mills, editor of “101 Weird Writers”įorget shagging backpackers and pot smoking fogies, the Abbey of St. And, as argued by our newest 101 Weird Writers contributor, Kat Clay, “The Howling Man” provides a provocative look at the nature of evil. In its approach, the story oddly evokes Decadent-era writing and spotlights Beaumont’s stylistic prowess. In the episode, a reference to a cross was changed to “staff of truth,” out of fear of a backlash from Christian preachers. The classic story reprinted in The Weird, “The Howling Man” (1959), was adapted as a screenplay for Twilight Zone. Lao, The Intruder, and The Masque of the Red Death. In addition to his macabre short stories, he wrote several Twilight Zone episodes, but also penned the screenplays for cult films like 7 Faces of Dr. There is no ranking system the order is determined by the schedule of posts.Ĭharles Beaumont (1929 - 1967) was a prolific American author who established himself as a script writer in Hollywood and died of a brain disorder at the tragically young age of thirty-eight.
THE HOWLING MAN TWILIGHT ZONE SERIES
This post is part of an ongoing series on 101 weird writers featured in The Weird compendium, the anthology that serves as the inspiration for this site.
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