HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN (2024) **

After digging the 2019 version of Hellboy, I figured I’d check out this new one, if only to be a completist.  The Crooked Man is a noticeably low budget affair and has no name stars (Jack Kesy replaces David Harbour as Hellboy this time around).  It was directed by Brian Taylor of Neveldine/Taylor fame though.  (The guys that made Crank.)

Hellboy roams around the backwoods of Appalachia looking for a giant spider when he runs afoul of some white trash witches.  He learns from one of the locals about a sinister figure known as “The Crooked Man” who haunts the woods that just may be the devil himself.  Before long, the titular figure sets out to drag everyone’s souls to Hell. 

Hellboy is starting to give The Fantastic Four a run for its money for the title of most unnecessarily rebooted comic book property.  This one takes place in the ‘50s, so it looks and feels removed from the previous versions’ timelines, which was a good idea.  However, because of its measly budget, it just can’t compete with the other iterations of the franchise. 

Hellboy comic creator Mike Mignola was apparently less than pleased with the other versions of his character, so he wrote the story, served as executive producer, and had more creative control over this adaptation.  Despite that, I fail to see what made this vision of the character preferable for him.  Maybe it’s hard to judge something that looks like a SyFy Channel Original when the others were all big budget studio movies.  

Overall, it’s kind of blah.  I mean I was sort of with it for a while.  Once it became another zombie flick late in the game, I started to mentally check out. 

Kesy makes for an OK Hellboy.  He captures the character’s world-weariness well enough.  Much of the problem has to do with the narrative itself, which makes him more of a bystander than a leading man.  Because of that, Kesy isn’t given much to work with. 

As ho-hum as much of Hellboy:  The Crooked Man is, I can’t deny the scene where a dead witch is revived when a baby raccoon crawls inside of her discarded skin.  I can honestly say I’ve never seen that in a movie before.  Nor can I say I’ve seen a snake come out of a woman’s coochie, slither around her, and then enter her mouth.  It’s just a shame these admittedly effective, albeit brief moments, didn’t inhabit a better film.