Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024) – Review

I have to admit, I’m still having troubles moving from a world where Ron Pearlman isn’t playing Hellboy. Now I have to admit, I wasn’t a particularly avid reader of Mike Mignola’s original comics, but I did adore what visionary filmmaker Guillermo del Toro did with the character, taking “Big Red” from his atmospheric, horror roots into a blisteringly imaginative fantasy realm that saw all manner of creatures thrown at us that included clockwork nazi assasins, godzilla-sized plant gods and Barry Manilow singalongs. A third instalment wasn’t just necessary, it seemed vital – but it never surfaced, instead stepping aside for Neil Marshall’s rather awkward reboot that brought the scale and David Harbour, but couldn’t hope to match the sense if dark wonder del Toro and Pearlman’s version offered.
Well, now we’re on Hellboy’s third go round with a greatly reduced budget and the unfamilar visage of Jack Kesy under those ground off horns – can on half of the director’s of Crank and a script overseen by Mignola himself finally sate the thirst of those still feeling cheated from a Hellboy trilogy?

The year is 1959 and the chain smoking, wise cracking demon agent of the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence known as Hellboy is in the middle of mission as he transports a rather peculiar creature to a special facility via train through the Appalacian mountains. He’s joined by some suited fed who obviously isn’t going to make it through the first scene and Bobbi Jo Song, a rookie BPRD agent who has precious little field work under her belt.
However, that’s soon rectified when the creature – a possessed giant spider – suddenly becomes super agitated as some large supernatural presence coming from the surrounding area and in the brutal scuffle that follows, the fed is killed (toldja), the spider escapes and the train derails leaving Hellboy and Bobbi stranded in the middle of nowhere. However, after a short hike to a remote shack, they soon become acquainted with Tom Ferrell, a local boy who has only just returned to his homestead to find that his mother has died, his father is missing, presumed drunk and a local devil worshiping witch in the area wants to secure his soul for her demonic master, a malformed, misshapen trickster named the Crooked Man.
It seems that many years earlier, Tom may have inadvertently sold his soul in order to secure himself an enchanted cat bone that managed to get him though an entire world war utterly unscathed and the Crooked Man decides that it’s nigh time Tom paid that outstanding dept once and for all. However, Hellboy isn’t the sort of guy to simply let something like this go down on his watch, so he interjects himself into negotiations the only way he knows how – by beating merry fuck out of everything with his stone Right Hand of Doom or blowing it to pieces with a custom firearm that makes Robocop’s hand cannon look like a spudgun.
While witches, zombies and other such supernatural scum suckers rise up to stop him, Hellboy soon realises that the Crooked Man has an ace up that tattered sleeve that might slow his role once and for all – derails about his birth that even he wasn’t aware of.

While I’ve tried to move on from the Hellboy glory days of the del Toro era, I can’t help thinking of that scene from Anchorman when an anxious Brick Tamland utters the words “You’re not Ron” whenever a see a new actor sporting the scarlet visage and some gnarly sideburns. This feeling came back greater than ever when I saw the first footage from Hellboy: The Crooked Man as the noticeable drop in production values and the fact that I’d barely heard of Jack Kesy (he played Black Tom in Deadpool 2 if that helps) meant that it was set off the same sort of alarm bells that sound when a sequel is made on the cheap in order to ensure a studio holds onto the rights. However, I have to say that despite my fears, this fourth swing at a live action Hellboy is far better than it has any right to be and I sat there, presently surprised. Firstly, while the drop in budget is noticable (hard to compare with eldritch gods striding through London while snapping people in two like breadsticks), it’s actually by design as character creator Mike Mignola is on board to give old Red something of a sizable tonal shift. Gone are the gaudy colours and a breathtaking scope and in its place is a stark, almost Robert Eggers style slice of rural horror that mostly exchanges huge, superhero brawls for mood and mist.
The reason for this is that not only goes the lack of giant, blue orges with metal fists keep the budget down, but it means that we finally get a Hellboy movie that hews closer to the original comic like never before. In fact, while on co-writing duties, Mignola has even managed to adapt what is generally regarded as the best of his Hellboy stories to the screen in a way that a gargantuan blockbuster simply couldn’t manage and it proves to be immensely refreshing.

So essentially what we have here is if The VVitch had a mumbling, muscle bound, red demon stumbling around in the background sparking up another smoke every five minutes and director Brian Taylor (co-director of Crank and Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance) seems game to try and match the choking atmosphere while similarly trying to squeeze in a modest monster fight here and there where he can. The result is unsurprisingly jarring and mismatched – it’s a little awkward to go from watching Hellboy throw hands with a giant spider and derail a train to suddenly switching to full blown rural horror complete with visions of orifice invading snakes and magic bridals that enslave it’s wearer in the form of a horse. But it turns out to be such a violent shift from what we’ve seen before, I couldn’t help but be drawn in by a movie that has the balls to cast Hellboy as an actual investigator – albeit one that frequently reacts with his huge honkin’ gun.
While he may be missing the raw, surly charisma of a Pearlman or a Harbour, Kesy manages to do a endearingly decent job as the titular brawler, mostly because his voice, demeanor and appearance frequently reminded me of Mickey Rourke and the other cast manage to create a genuine sense of dread mostly by laying on their southern accents thicker than Nicki Minaj’s hip measurements and looking harrowed as fuck. Also making an impact is the Crooked Man himself, who sidesteps the traditional world conquering forms of fantasy villainy the previous movies focused on by having him work his insidious, Conjuring-style mischief on one soul at a time.

However, while Brian Taylor manages to whip up an impressively tangible world full of misty forests and rickety graveyards, his heavy reliance on twitchy editing accompanied by SUDDEN LOUD NOISES every fifteen seconds or so eventually gets more annoying rather than unsettling and sadly overstays it’s welcome around thirty minutes before the end. However, ultimately the most shocking thing about Hellboy’s more modest return is that I would actually be totally be down for another movie, lesser budget and lack of Pearlman be damned…
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