With each new “Hellboy” movie reboot, it’s hard not to wistfully think of what del Toro’s “Hellboy 3” might have been. The 2019 reboot with Harbour was a major box office flop, even with a restrained (for a comic book movie) $50 million budget, and the budget has been reigned in a lot more this time around. There’s some decidedly dodgy CGI in the trailer for “Hellboy: The Crooked Man” and in places it does feel a little like a fan-made movie.
That said, it’s hard to resist a horror movie set in the Appalachian mountains, and this is definitely a more interesting direction to go in than a generic superhero plot or (god forbid) another origin story. The movie is directly based on a “Hellboy” comic book arc from 2008, and the small glimpse of the titular villain that we get is suitably creepy. The Hellboy make-up also strikes a nice balance; unlike Harbour, Kesy doesn’t appear to be buried under so many layers of prosthetics that he can’t emote.
What the hell(boy)! Let’s give one more reboot a chance.
“Hellboy: The Crooked Man” doesn’t yet have a release date, but the trailer says it’s “coming soon.”
