THE TWILIGHT ZONE
"The Howling Man" (1960; d. Douglas Heyes, tp. Charles Beaumont)

Narrator David Ellington (actor HMWynant slipping into unexplained Euro accent) addresses camera (he our "seeker of truth" [sez host Rod Serling] investigative other) while storm bellows outside (behind his head: psychic turmoil, continuing thru’out play – entire contents fever dream, vs tangible reality), repeating "You must believe" (trying to convince self, of impossible); on post-WWI (world at war à la self; trad origin of Dada-Surrealism, shock-reaction to unimaginable human atrocity) walking tour (back to basics, in retelling of vintage folktale) across Central Europe (topic: core Western character), takes storm-refuge in hermitage ("I’m lost": religion last sanctuary from horrors of human/nature, + mind on descent into sleep) whose abbot Brother Jerome (fraternity indicating masculine orientation of distress) orders him out (BroJ dream-censor keeping inquisitive agents out + threatening material locked away so fantasy may continue undisturbed: nature of religion) before he collapses (moral/spiritual exhaustion after war).

Revives (into deeper layer of sleep) to "Help me!" cries (echoing own earlier pleas [awa those of 1st TZ protagonist]: voice from w/i) from title Man (primal scream à la "The horror") imprisoned in cell (cubbyhole of mind), whom BJ sez is the devil himself! (Satan subset of religious mind; told he’s been locked up 5 yrs, but part of whole of DE’s experience there) but who claims he was jailed for kissing his girlfriend in public (fundamentalist equation of libido w/ evil, monk BJ trying to maintain homophilic boyhood by sequestering emergent interest in gurls, resulting in terminally disoriented DE [camera’s seasick rocking cfg same-yr Billy Budd, w/ similar epistemological debate over good/evil in isolated environment]); sez jealous BJ (oedipal boy rejecting primal scene which wd send him on path to adulthood, or father denying son mother’s company + keeping him in kid-limbo) subdued him w/ his staff (patriarchal truncheon of, according to BJ, "truth," ie consciousness, keeping irrational at bay) + that they not religious order (probable hedge against offended viewers’ letters; meaning, also, monastery metaphorical – animus exclusive of feminine influence, result/effect of which is War whose influence pervades story) but outcasts (material repressed + similarly sequestered in unconscious: dysfunctional male/animus development).

DE confronts Brother Jerome (his psychic other; "not your son" assertion indicating both filial relationship + adolescent rebellion), who tells him HM locked up 5 yrs (lustrum, ending in ritual sacrifice aka War) – before which there were "no howls in the hermitage" (expressions of libidinous repression; ie before onset of puberty + desire for female relation) – himself part of "your world" (consciousness + persona) 40 yrs (DE’s approximate age: own self prior to shell-shock; lockup ostensibly improvement, tho w/ apparent deleterious effect); aftwd, tended vineyard + "prayed for lost souls" (return to earthy/spiritual centeredness [ie myopia] – vs DE’s perambulations, trek across Europe as thru workings of warlike/tormented psyche of Western Man) – all recounted by hearth aka contemplative center of Self (+ cfg tumultuous weather w/o).

Allowed to leave in morning (return to consciousness) on oath to keep prisoner secret (deny maturity, monks w/ their laws + symbols like overgrown He-Man Womanhaters’ Club) + sent "directly" to Bro Christopherus (BC: pre-adolescence; "straight" path [St Chris guardian of journeys] trad cf to winding pagan aka unconscious, BJ so obsessive about truth/celibacy/rationality he’s mad [mad, I tell you]), whom he locks in cell instead (quarantining repressive faculty, DE agent allowed into hive-mind by him in 1st place to do just this) + removes staff-bolt from HM’s door (solo phallus to cf coital key-in-lock: latter 1st step in transcending monastic rule) + gives him coat (xchg of identities, DE aligned now w/ demonized adult); after some oogie-boogie (mumbo-jumbo "twisted" unconsc), proceeds to transform (à la pubescent physical changes) to "horny" devil, leaving empty rm behind (thatched floor à la "stable," his release as of animal nature), to DE’s disbelief (which BJ calls "man’s weakness + Satan’s strength": that devil seen but not recognized failure to analyze/understand symbols – righteous, literal BJ’s problem awa DE’s).

Back in present-day 1939 (gap in narrative dreamless non-REM sleep, in which info unearthed in previous dream-cycle incorporated into psyche: reincarcerated debbil), tells housekeeper (1st female in play: not-the-wife, intermediary combo of custodial mother + spouse, also seeing to mental upkeep) to whom he’s been telling story (her visualization audience’s absorption into drama, narrator our device – as BJ’s – for locating + securing unconscious material) to Keep Door Locked (film turned Bluebeard [cf BJ/John Carradine’s 1941 version], on revelation of man’s brute side to fem sensibilities) on room containing Man (from monastery to modern, co-ed apartment as from boyhood to maturity, control of id hallmark of socialization) while he arranges His transfer to hermitage (burial in deepest unconsc) on eve of WWII (release again of misery on world, result again of repressed eros turned thanatos in captivity).

Guess what happens next.