Movie Review: Hellboy: The Crooked Man

December 27, 2024

by Ryan Martin, Reporter

Big Red returns to the silver screen!

Hellboy: The Crooked Man is the 4^th live-action film, and second total reboot of the Hellboy cinematic franchise. This latest movie is an adaptation of the Hellboy: The Crooked Man and Others story, featuring a whole new cast and MUCH darker tone. Spoilers ahead.

So, let’s address the elephant in the room. No Guillermo Del Toro, No Ron Perlman. This time around Jack Kesy (best known for his role as Gabriel Bolivar in The Strain) straps on the horns of Anung un Rama, and I think does a serviceable job, playing a more serious take on the character.

The plot of the movie itself is set in 1950’s Appalachia. It starts off with a B.P.R.D. mission to transport a supernatural entity, that quickly derails into an action-packed fight sequence. The result of this puts our crew stranded in the middle of what can loosely be called a rural town. We are then QUICKLY introduced to a world of the supernatural, including witches, demons, familiars, and eventually our BIG BAD, The Crooked Man.

This new take on Hellboy is a major departure from the Del Toro movies, even darker than the maligned 2019 reboot, and is much more in line with the horror aspects of the comic series. If you are going in expecting the wise cracking Hellboy that Ron Perlman made famous in the mid 2000’s then temper your expectations. This is a straight Horror movie, not Horror/Comedy, HORROR! Warning, expect some extremely gruesome and disgusting scenes that your average viewer may be turned off by.

Effects wise you can tell the movie was working with a smaller budget than the previous films. The CGI only characters are fairly obvious, but at least the titular characters, Hellboy and The Crooked Man, were presented totally with practical effects, and they looked fantastic.

The film has a total run time of 99 minutes, but felt longer to me with the disjointed transitions between scenes (we are talking hard cuts with fade to black / fade back in to the next plot beat). I feel like the movie would have done better if there was a chance for more world building and back story to be presented, which I think would have translated better to a TV miniseries.

That all being said, if you are a fan of the Hellboy character/universe, you like horror movies, and can overlook some pacing flaws, this is a good supernatural horror movie.

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives Hellboy: The Crooked Man 3 out of 5 sequels.