GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★1/2
Rated: MA15+
Directed by: Brian Taylor
Written by: Christopher Golden, Mike Mignola, Brian Taylor
Based on: Hellboy by Mike Mignola
Produced by: Mike Richardson, Jeffery Greenstein, Jonathan Yunger, Les Weldon, Rob Van Norden, Yariv Lerner
Starring: Jack Kesy, Jefferson White, Adeline Rudolph, Joseph Marcell, Leah McNamara, Martin Massindale, Suzanne Bertish.
Screwed, chewed and tattooed.
In this fourth instalment of Hellboy, it’s 1959. And Hellboy (Jack Kesy), along with Bobbie Jo Song (Adeline Rudolph) from the bureau for Paranormal Research and Defence (BPRD), are on a train transporting an arachnoid that is more than just a spider.
The opening of, Hellboy: The Crooked Man, is fast-paced. The arachnoid breaking free, the scene out of control as the train dislodges from the track, landing Hellboy and the certainly-has-a-thing-for Bobbie in the Appalachia Forest, lost.
The storyline meanders until landing on the re-negotiation of a soul. Tom Ferrell (Jefferson White) losing his soul when he happens upon a beautiful witch (Leah McNamara) bathing in the river in his younger days.
The witch encourages Tom to make a deal with the devil, where the bone he holds in his hand when he sees the devil becomes a lucky bone saving him from injury during the war.
In 1959, Tom comes home to the Appalachia mountains to search for his family and girlfriend Cora (Hannah Margetson) whom he left, trying to escape the pact he made all those years ago.
The forest is full of witches, serving, The Crooked Man.
When alive, The Crooked Man was made rich playing both sides of the Civil War. Hanged, his reward from those who live in the mountains, The Crooked Man was returned by the devil to collect souls, receiving a copper penny for each soul, including Tom’s.
The only sanctuary in the mountains is the old church where blind Reverend Watts (Joseph Marcell) holds the dark forces at bay.
The passage of the film is earmarked with chapters that don’t really signpost the story:
‘The Lucky Bone’,
‘Witch Ball’,
‘The Hurricane’.
But lend a fable to the storyline, like the witch acknowledging the screen as the audience watches through the eyes of a crow as she explains the spell of making a witch’s ball.
There’s trickery with the camera work, the perspectives adding a foreboding feeling:
Guts splatter across the lens of the camera.
Sudden darkened scenes click to switch from one place to another.
There’s that Hellboy flavour to, The Crooked Man but there’s also a distinct feeling of a glossing over, creating a superficial tone.
Hellboy’s mother’s introduced into his origin story, the film clicking into this other dark world where she hangs in suspense, tortured. A giant crow represents the devil as he incites her pregnancy with Hellboy.
It’s another dimension to the film.
But the threads of the storyline barely hold together in this movie.
Hellboy, the character, is strangely monotone, with a rare wisecrack, ‘Smells like death. And birdshit,’ so it didn’t seem like Hellboy at all.
But there is a unique strangeness to the film.
It’s dark and creepy but so very disjointed. Which makes me think of a piece of meat.
It’s that kinda movie.
IN CINEMAS OCTOBER 10
Also screening at MONSTER FEST 2024
Hellboy – The Crooked Man – Monster Fest Australia
Click HERE for dates & venues
