“Hellboy: The Crooked Man” Review

After the sloppy staggering of the previous Hellboy reboot, having a lower-stakes story like The Crooked Man seemed like a solid idea. Aiming with the direct inspiration of a Hellboy comic series with creator Mike Mignola himself co-writing the screenplay, this project seemed like it’d come closer to capturing the same magic from Guillermo del Toro’s films and avoiding the slop of Neil Marshall’s adaptation. While Crooked Man certainly has its own style more distinct from the previous iterations, it also has an air of cheapness and artificiality, considering this is a film entirely set in the Appalachians but was shot in Bulgaria.

Jack Kesy now steps into the red makeup of Hellboy, this time working with the BPRD in the late 1950s. Considering this is a reasonably early mission compared to when Hellboy first started working with humans, this new setting might offer a chance to present a different character version. Yet Hellboy continues to hold the same swagger he did in modern times. He treats sights of giant spiders and ghoulish zombies as the most casual criminals he runs across in his line of work. While approaching these supernatural threats with a sigh and cigar fit the character, it feels like a missed opportunity here, considering this adventure feels more routine than rousing.

Paired up with the rookie agent Bobbie (Adeline Rudolph), they track down a monster to a remote village. It is there that they learn from the ex-soldier Tom (Jefferson White) that this community is plagued by the presence of a demonic force known as the Crooked Man (Martin Bassindale). Bound by witchcraft and grief, the Crooked Man terrorizes the mountains by reviving the dead and revealing the sins of mankind. You know, standard evil ghost stuff. So, Hellboy loads up his gun and teams up with the town to stop the threat of this mysterious character and the zombies he resurrects from the ground.

The best thing to say about this type of film is that it feels closer to horror than the last three Hellboy films, which seemed to favor more action and adventure. With a mission entirely contained to a run-down American town, there’s more time to focus on the ominous words of witches and the nightmarish visions inspired by demons, where it will take a little more than a big gun to save the day. There’s also a lot of breathing room to divulge the backstory behind the Crooked Man, the community that spawned his presence, and the lingering fears of those struggling to process the past. There’s plenty of trauma to go into with Tom and some questioning of faith when Reverend Nathaniel (Joseph Marcell) becomes a key player. But it all feels like wasted opportunities for some unique chemistry and world-building. Consider the scene where Nathaniel believes that the village’s church will offer up the best protection from the Crooked Man’s minions. Hellboy’s retort of guns being decent backup feels more like the words of a cocky human soldier and not a paranormal hunter who has seen some shit.

Nearly all the Hellboy charm has been drained from The Crooked Man. It never rises to become a compelling action or horror film, presenting a budgeted picture that gets lost in its setting, leaving the characters behind in its dreary mountain location. Criticizing the film’s ho-hum CGI would be shooting fish in a barrel, but even the suspension of disbelief doesn’t leave much to appreciate on the story side. There isn’t much compelling dialogue or even one-liners from the gruff Hellboy as he mostly ambles through a mission that grows as tiresome and dull as the bland color pallette. Any chance of character is drowned out in exposition dumps, subpar world-building, and hauntings so standard that even the grandest of computer graphics couldn’t have made them more effective. For a franchise mostly known for its creative monster romps and playfulness with the material, this film kicks its feet up and takes it too easy. I recall the previous Hellboy film being a stumbling effort that kept tripping over itself with ridiculous dialogue that never worked, leading one critic to write a headline about how Hellboy should shut the hell up. If 2019’s Hellboy wouldn’t stop talking, The Crooked Man can barely string together words, as though it chugged a gallon of sleepy-time tea.