‘Hellboy: The Crooked Man’ is Spooky Fun [Review]
I’ve always found it fascinating how a niche character like Mike Mignola’s Hellboy managed to become a household name despite not being a part of either Marvel or DC. This is even more impressive when you realize that his Dark Horse series is mostly comprised of standalone horror yarns rather than the large-scale of supervillain battles that we usually associate with the medium, with Hellboy usually being content with exorcising a Haunted House or defeating a single vampire rather than repeatedly saving the world.
And yet, when the time came to bring the character to the big screen, filmmakers decided to focus on the apocalyptic mythology behind the horned hero instead of his most entertaining stories. Don’t get me wrong, these larger conflicts do exist in the Hellboy comics (and I’ve found something to love about every adaptation so far), it’s just that they usually serve as bookends and background context for the spooky romps which make up the bulk of the series.
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That’s why I was cautiously optimistic when it was announced that Mignola was partnering with filmmaker Brian Taylor (co-creator of Crank and writer/director of the criminally underseen Mom and Dad) for a more grounded Hellboy reboot based on a standalone miniseries from 2008. While many fans lamented that the upcoming film wouldn’t feature the fairy-tale charms of Del Toro’s movies or the mean-spirited spectacle of Neil Marshall’s film, a smaller story seemed like a step in the right direction.
And having now seen the film early due to a bizarre distribution deal which treated this high-profile comic-book adaptation like an indie horror flick and had it dumped onto Brazilian screens with little-to-no marketing buzz, I’m pleased to say that Hellboy: The Crooked Man is a surprisingly fun little horror movie.
Starring Jack Kesy as everyone’s favorite BPRD agent, The Crooked Man follows Hellboy and his supernatural-obsessed partner Bobbie Jo Song (Adeline Rudolph) in the 1950s as they become stranded in a small Appalachian community due to a monster-related train accident. As the duo attempts to find their way home, they end up crossing paths with a demonic figure responsible for the area’s witch problem, with the titular Crooked Man also having a mysterious connection to Hellboy’s past.
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Immersing viewers in some deliciously creepy Appalachian atmosphere containing shades of films like Wrong Turn and even The Witch, Taylor’s film is a refreshing change of pace when compared to the over-the-top action of previous adaptations. Of course, this also means that the flick is much slower paced than your average comic-book movie, focusing more on establishing mood and mythology as we’re introduced to the residents of these isolated hills and their would-be heroes.
Naturally, Hellboy himself is the main attraction here. Not only are his make-up effects way better than the initial promos would have you believe, but Jack Kesy also manages to deliver another memorable take on the iconic character. And while I personally think that we’ve yet to see a bad Hellboy performance, this version of the investigator seems to have been directly lifted from the comics. From his jaded personality to his odd sense of humor (perfectly introduced with the line “I am the heebie-jeebies”), it’s clear that Mignola had a much larger influence on the production this time around.
There are also a couple of other interesting supporting roles here, with both the haunted war veteran Tom Ferrell (Jefferson White) and his ex-lover-turned-witch Effie Kolb (Leah McNamara) having legitimately interesting backstories boosted by great performances. But it’s hard to compete against our demonic lead. I was also bothered by how the script completely wastes Rudolph’s talents by refusing to expand on Bobbie Jo despite her interest in the paranormal later becoming a key plot point.
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I understand that this is meant to be a single open-and-shut case from Hellboy’s past, but a little more characterization would have gone a long way, especially when the film wants to suggest that there might be something more going on between Bobbie Jo and her partner. While one could argue that previous Hellboy movie had a similar problem, it was much easier to ignore these shortcomings when we were constantly being bombarded by several memorable monster designs and bonkers lore about the main character’s Arthurian descendance. The Crooked Man has no such distractions (and is also a bit shorter, clocking in at less than 100 minutes), so I would have appreciated a denser script.
There are still plenty of exciting confrontations here, but they mostly take the form of surreal conversations filled with horror tropes rather than action scenes. That’s not to say that there aren’t any memorable fights. I really enjoyed a particularly thrilling sequence involving undead sinners and a blessed shovel, but these moments are few and far in between. They also have a habit of feeling like the filmmakers were forced to compromise their vision due to what will likely be the film’s most polarizing element: its budget.
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The reported $20 million production budget is by no means a small amount of money (especially in the horror genre), but you can tell that most of these resources went towards the beginning and end of the picture, with the rest of the film having to make the most of its naturally spooky shooting location in Bulgaria. While I don’t really mind this kind of cinematic down-sizing, I can tell that a lot of fans are going to be put off when they realize that they’re watching something much closer to The Conjuring than a Marvel movie.
Nevertheless, if you’re willing to engage with the film on its own terms and watch it like a stylishly scary period piece about witchcraft, you’ll likely find some surprisingly engaging commentary on deals with the devil and coming to terms with one’s past. And from snake-related body horror to lots of bizarre witchcraft lore, this is also the most Halloween-Season-appropriate Hellboy movie so far. The film even adds some Lovecraftian elements to the mix as Taylor characterizes the Appalachian landscape itself as an eldritch entity responsible for all the paranormal shenanigans going on the area. It’s some seriously spooky stuff.
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Hellboy: The Crooked Man may not be perfect, but I honestly wish that we’d get another one of these every year. I had plenty of fun watching Hellboy unravel an Appalachian blood feud and would love to see the character show up again to right wrongs in other times/places with a steadily increasing budget—so long as both Brian Taylor and Mike Mignola are willing to come back for more.
Until then, I definitely recommend checking this one out on the big screen so long as you know what you’re walking into.
Summary
‘Hellboy: The Crooked Man’ may not be perfect, but it is seriously spooky.
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