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Hellboy: The Crooked Man opens in 1959, on a train, where our younger hero, played by Jack Kesy (Deadpool 2), is trying to deal with a mahoosive funnel-webbed killer spider, and is told, “Man, it’ll give you the heebie-jeebies!”, to which he replies, “I *AM* the heebie-jeebies(!)”
The character has previously been brought to the screen in 2004’s Hellboy and 2008’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army, with Ron Perlman in the role – both of which I thought were reasonable films, but I’m not big on them like some people are; and then in 2019 for… Hellboy. Yes, they just stuck to the original title, for some reason. David Harbour took the lead, and God, that film stank. Even the director, Neil Marshall, had nothing good to say about it when he was interviewed for the 4K release of his 2002 indie film, Dog Soldiers.
This mystery sees him joined by the stunning Hong Konger Adeline Rudolph as Bobbie Jo Song, referred to simply as “Jo”, who normally just works in the office, but because plot reasons, she wants to get out in the field to get to the bottom of what’s going on, even though it’s potentially dangerous.
As for the character mentioned in the title, as a boy, Tom Ferrell (Jefferson White – Civil War) did a deal with The Crooked Man (Martin Bassindale) as a kid, after giving him a penny back then, meaning that you’re indebted to him for life, so you might have to ultimately sacrifice yourself to save others; and now, it might be time to pay the piper.
Throw in Cora Fisher (Hannah Margetson), who may be a witch because she can be dead, but the presence of a raccoon going into her body to bring her back to life. However, if there was anything in her dialogue to make sense of this, I wasn’t able to figure it out, when it doesn’t help that when characters like hers speak with mumbling Southern drawl.
And that’s before we get to the point of burying an old man who used to be a horse(!)
In Hellboy: The Crooked Man, I liked the character of Hellboy portrayed here, being forthright and wise-cracking, but the story is complete gibberish.
Like a lot of films, given how much this was complete nonsense, I was hoping to later piece it together when someon details the plot synopsis on Wikipedia… but almost a week on, and no-one has yet bothered!
As such, this feels like it’s more suited to an episode of a Netflix series, rather than a cinema movie.
Oddly, though, I didn’t hate it, and while I wouldn’t want to watch it again, it passed by 90 mins or so as a reasonably comfy watch, although the resolution to the storyline was plain stupid (see spoiler section below, if you don’t care to watch the film):
When it comes to the finances, though, I see the budget was $20m, but hasn’t even taken $1m at the box office!
Additionally, when I saw this film, I saw five films in one day, although technically, it worked out as 6, since Hellboy counted as two films, as it was across two screenings. I thought you could book it on the app once the first one had dropped off, but they need to be done in person. As I’d gone over the 4 films ‘limit’, it required a supervisor to authorise it. They just scan the QR code on the app, and then book it.
Hellboy: The Crooked Man was showing at 7.10pm and 9.40pm, with Shaun of the Dead as a one-off at 8.15pm (although it is returning this weekend and at 9.30pm, which would’ve been ideal last weekend!), so I came out of Hellboy at about 8.20pm and since I couldn’t do it on the app, I had to ask at the counter to arrange the tickets.
For a moment, before I went out, I thought there might now be a strict 4-film limit to… Limitless (if so, I’d have said the name of the product), and so I might be going out there to find out I can’t book according to this schedule, and so I’d have to go back into Hellboy, having missed a few minutes, but nope, it was fine. Just allow a few mins to do this, since they need to call a supervisor down.
The other films I saw on the same day were Megalopolis, Never Let Go and My Old Ass.
There is no mid- or post-credit scene.
Hellboy: The Crooked Man is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD, ahead of its release date of December 9th.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 99 minutes
Release date: September 27th 2024
Studio: Ketchup Entertainment
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 5/10
Director: Brian Taylor
Producers: Jeffrey Greenstein, Yariv Lerner, Mike Richardson, Sam Schulte, Robert Van Norden, Les Weldon, Jonathan Yunger
Screenplay: Christopher Golden, Mike Mignola, Brian Taylor
Comic book “Dark Horse”: Mike Mignola
Music: Sven Faulconer
Cast:
Hellboy: Jack Kesy
Bobbie Jo Song: Adeline Rudolph
Tom Ferrell: Jefferson White
Effie Kolb: Leah McNamara
Reverend Watts: Joseph Marcell
Cora Fisher: Hannah Margetson
The Crooked Man: Martin Bassindale
Sarah: Carola Colombo
Farmhand: Nathan Cooper
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.