Hellboy: The Crooked Man is now available on Digital HD.
It’s safe to say that most Hellboy fans probably had their expectations firmly in check with Hellboy: The Crooked Man. Between the fact that it carries a far lower budget than its predecessors and that it’s skipping a theatrical release and going direct to video-on-demand, it’s easy to assume the worst from the fourth live-action Hellboy movie. That’s what makes this reboot/prequel such a welcome surprise. Despite its undeniably cheap trappings, it’s a surprisingly enjoyable take on a classic comic book storyline.
Directed by Brian Taylor (of fame), The Crooked Man has the distinction of being the most faithful Hellboy movie to date (the two animated films from the mid-’00s aside). It’s a direct adaptation of Mike Mignola and Richard Corben’s 2008 miniseries of the same name, in which Hellboy (Jack Kesy) is drawn into the Appalachian backcountry in search of the titular demonic foe (Martin Bassindale) in 1959 – in fact, Mignola scripted the film alongside his frequent writing partner Christopher Golden and the director. The result is a fairly close translation of the comic, albeit one that embellishes the source material a bit in order to pad out the 99-minute running time and give Hellboy himself a more clearly defined character arc.
For the most part, these changes work to the film’s benefit. The Crooked Man comic is a bit too spartan a tale to make a proper feature, so the added allusions to Hellboy’s origins and dark nature help put some meat on its bones. The same goes for the addition of Bobbie Jo Song (Adeline Rudolph), a new creation of Mignola, Golden, and Taylor’s screenplay. Jo’s tense dynamic with her fellow Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense agent Hellboy is a lot of fun, even if in some ways Rudolph’s appearance and performance feel a bit anachronistic. From the way her hair is styled to her distinctly modern-sounding dialogue, Jo looks and sounds like the product of a more contemporary era. As the saying goes, hers is a face that has definitely seen an iPhone.
Kesy, for his part, delivers exactly what you’d want out of a comics-accurate Hellboy. He’s stoic and brooding, with just enough of a tender side to remind us of the character’s tragic nature. It’s a film that gives Kesy plenty of room to brood, smoke cigarettes, and crack wise, which are all necessary ingredients in a proper Hellboy adaptation. It’s also clear that the majority of the meager budget was spent on his makeup, allowing this Hellboy to hold his own visually alongside the ones played by Ron Perlman and David Harbour.
Leah McNamara’s villainous witch Effie Kolb is another highlight among the cast, with McNamara never wasting an opportunity to chew all the scenery she can get her teeth around. Unfortunately, The Crooked Man himself proves to be a rather bland villain, lacking the creepy, unsettling vibe the comic establishes so well. He mostly looks like a bad imitation of Warwick Davis’ character from the Leprechaun movies.
That speaks to a larger problem:- the budget, or lack thereof. There’s no getting around the fact that Hellboy: The Crooked Man was made on the cheap. The CGI is rudimentary. The cinematography is bland. Its worst sin is in failing to take advantage of the Appalachian setting. There’s both a beauty and an oppressiveness to this area in real life that fails to come across on screen. That could be because The Crooked Man was filmed in Bulgaria, but considering what a film like The Blair Witch Project can achieve with indistinctive forest locations and a shoestring budget, it’s disappointing that The Crooked Man doesn’t mine more horror out of its isolated, dimly lit environments.
Still, it manages to provide a lean, mean supernatural adventure in the vein of the Evil Dead movies. The plot moves briskly along and wraps up before it manages to wear out its welcome. All three lead characters are given small but satisfying arcs. What Hellboy: The Crooked Man lacks in fear factor it mostly makes up for in fun. Frankly, it could have been much, much worse.
Verdict
Hellboy: The Crooked Man never really reaches the heights of the two Guillermo Del Toro-directed films that launched Hellboy’s cinematic career, nor is it as frustratingly lousy as the 2019 reboot. This third attempt at a live-action Hellboy franchise falls comfortably in the middle. It does a solid job of adapting the seminal source material while adding a few necessary embellishments. And while the low-budget trappings often work against the film’s horror elements, The Crooked Man nonetheless proves to be a satisfying comic book adaptation in a year marked by far more expensive misfires like Madame Web and Joker: Folie à Deux.