Chosen story Proposal

 

Even though I thought I would take the modern-day horror Novel 'The Howling' (1977), it is the 1901-1902 horror-suspense thriller Novel  'The Hound of the Baskervilles' that I have chosen for my re-write

 

Most would be familiar with the tale as being a part of the series of books about the Detective Sherlock Holmes created by Arthur Conan Doyle. It follows the Detective and his assistant Dr Watson as they are called to a new case by the Baskerville Family who claim to be haunted by a Ghostly Black Dog. However it is not just the Beast which is on their hands for this case but they also need to track down a convicted killer who has just escaped from prison and solve another mystery relating to the conflict between the Baskerville Family and another rival family, the Stapelton family

 

What is intriguing in the story apart from the story itself is also its origins. Dartmoor where the story takes place is thought of as 'The Devil's Playground' as it has a very paranormal atmosphere and thus is rich in tales of the unexplained, the most famous of these being legends of Phantom Black Dogs which are ultimately recognized as the Animalistic villain of this story and whose sightings have been traced all the way back to 1500s up to the present day. The story also comes from the graphic account of a local Squire Capbell who in 1677, 100 years after a few English Churches were thought to have been invaded by Black Dogs (During 1577), was found to be a worshipper of the Devil and attacked his wife after he accused her of infidelity. Although she died, her Dog who was by her side chose to avenge her and attacked her husband but the Animal was stabbed to death by Capbell in his dying moments. Following this, the Ghost of the Dog was said to haunt every generation of the family. Ironically following his death a pack of Phantom Dogs were seen gathering around his grave and then howling over the moor. They were thought to be Pets of the Devil as they were reported to have been seen roaming the Moor with the King/Prince of Hell nine years before Capbell's death. It was believed that these Dogs were delivering Capbell's soul to their master of hell. If one of these Dogs was seen individually then to those who saw the Phantom Animal, it was the Devil in Animal form and if he or any of his Phantom Pets did indeed invade Churches and savage those inside then surely they would be attempting to stop people from praying to the enemy of the Devil.
(The account of the corrupt squire is the inspiration for the prolouge/introduction of The Hound of the Baskervilles)

Arthur Conan Doyle was told of these Phantom Dogs (Which have gone by many names such as Black Shuck, Moddey Dhoo, Dip, Gwiliggi or Gytrash) when he was holidaying in Dartmoor with his friend, sportsman and newspaper editor Fletcher Robinson who told him of these Ghostly Animals which are thought to be an omen of death.
(Ironically even today, a sighting of a Phantom Black Dog is said to be a foreteller of doom as sightings are usually followed by the death of anyone who is close to a witness of the Ghostly Animal. Sometimes, if a witness tells another person, that person too may die as well and thus the tradition is not to tell anyone of their Phantom Dog sighting for a day and even a year)

While Doyle used the Phantom Dogs as the inspiration for his new Sherlock Holmes story, another element which interwove itself into the tale in the form of the Baskervile Family and the Stapelton Family (The families who are at seeming odds with one another and thus end up having an intense rivalry) was Robinson's coach Harry Baskerville and another Baskerville Family who Doyle knew well. This family was intermarried with another family, the Vaughn Family who ironically owned a large Black Labrador

 

To me all this detailed information is making it seem clear that for a few readers the central villain is the Ghostly Dog himself and that even though the case also involves a convicted killer on the loose and a rivalry between two families, they do not seem to matter or be important, nor are they critical to the plot even though they were/are there. I have thus decided to base my re-write around the Phantom Dogs and the paranormal history that surrounds Dartmoor

 

I feel that this area of the English Countryside should be further intensified with the presence of the occult if Dartmoor is often thought of as the land of the Devil

 

Thus I feel that in certain chapters where Sherlock Holmes is investigating the mystery, he should do further research on these Beasts and be told that legends of Black Dogs are nothing unusual in Dartmoor and according to Holmes, the Devil is targeting the Baskerville family and thus the introduction of Christian Faith would also be important here

 

Thus this would be the background of my rewrite, to make it evident that Dartmoor is indeed an eerie and supernatural place and thus Holmes would need to rely on his faith in the Lord to protect the Baskerville Family from the forces of hell until he realizes that the Phantom Dog is not at all a Pet or manifestation of the Devil but rather the brutalized Pet of the Stapelton Family, trained to wreak havoc the Baskerville Family