Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024)

This film has an unique place in my cinema viewing history. It's the only series I've ever seen on a big screen where I've been the only person in the auditorium for each one. This latest episode sees the eponymous devil (Jack Kesy) escorting a lethal spider on a train with aspiring para-psychologist "Bobbie Joe" (Adeline Rudolph) when an accident sees them deposited into the middle of the Appalachian forest. Here they encounter long-since abandoned coal mines and an equally out-of-touch community that smacks a great deal of "The Deliverance" (1972). With little sign of their spider, they encounter the returning local lad "Tom" (Jefferson White) and are quickly helping him repatriate his dad to the cemetery and keep his ex-girlfriend/local witch "Effie" (Leah McNamara) out of the hands of the real devil. It's dark and misty settings do go some way to creating a slight sense of mystical peril, but the rest of this is badly acted and written with zero originality and few opportunities for action or humour. Kesy seems content to take his fee for wandering around wagging his pointy red tail and smoking whilst the director Brian Taylor uses plenty of tried and tested cinematic techniques to try and breathe some life (or death) into this derivative drudge of a film. I kept thinking he's got a pair of goggles on his head - but them's what used to be his horns. Like his horns, whatever made this work first time round has long gone and I can't say I'd even bother with this on a streaming service on a wet Wednesday in February. No more, please.

I didn't think it was possible to make Hellboy boring but as has often been the case with cinema in recent years, I was wrong, very wrong.

Whilst this film starts off well, with typical Hellboy style action involving a train and a giant spider, it doesn't take long before it devolve's into a languid affair.

The atmosphere and handling is reminiscent of Tim Burton's work but that's where the similarities end. The script lacks pace, momentum and the frenetic, supernatural action, which has come to characterise the Hellboy franchise. Even the climax to this film felt inconsequential.

In summary, decent cinematic's, combined with sound acting can't fix the marked absence of the horror action elements viewers have come to expect from the Hellboy franchise.