Hellboy: The Crooked Man: faithful comic book adaptation evokes proper dread

By now, Hellboy – created by artist/writer Mike Mignola in 1993 – has had almost as many reboots as far more established characters like Spider-Man. Guillermo del Toro directed Hellboy (2004), followed by a less satisfactory sequel Hellboy The Golden Army (2008). Neil Marshall handled the misfire Hellboy (2019) – with several animated features along the way. 

Hellboy: The Crooked Man’s director Brian Taylor, half of the Neveldine/Taylor team who gave us Crank (2006), has also co-scripted with Mignola and Christopher Golden. The result is almost unique in contemporary comics-derived cinema in being a faithful adaptation of an actual run of the comic – a three-issue series from 2008 drawn by Richard Corben. ‘The Crooked Man’ fills in one of many gaps in the demonic hero’s chronology by involving him with Appalachian witchery in the 1950s. The film adds a giant spider and some tie ins to ongoing stories – including a possible love interest in academic Bobbie Jo Song (Adeline Rudolph) – but is a  refreshingly self-contained tale in which the fate of the hero and his universe is not in major jeopardy.

Mignola’s intent with the comic was to homage the use of Appalachian lore in the stories of Manly Wade Wellman, previously brought to the movies only in the little-seen Legend of Hillbilly John (1972). This slightly displaces Hellboy (new-to-the-role Jack Kesy) from the centre of the story to make room for Tom Ferrell (Jefferson White), a mildly cursed backwoods wanderer in the spirit of Wellman’s continuing character Silver John. It’s a rich, seldom-tapped vein of rural American horror, with the Crooked Man (a miser sent back from hell to collect souls for pennies) combining the bone-cracking contortionism of a 21st century horror character with the whiskery guile of Walter Huston’s Mr Scratch in All That Money Can Buy (1941). 

In recent years, one or two American independent horror films – Chad Crawford Kinkle’s Jug Face (2013), Jeremiah Kipp’s Slapface (2021) – have trod these backwoods paths using authentic locations, whereas Taylor gives Bulgaria a make-over to represent Wellman’s haunted woodlands and calls in a mostly British supporting cast to strain somewhat in the hillbilly accent department.

It’s unusual for entries in this franchise to stress horror over fantasy. There are fights with demon special effects critters (the spider is somewhat iffy) but most of the conflict is spiritual, with folk stepping into a dark limbo to wrestle with their tainted souls. It respects its source to a high degree – actors are cast (or made up) exactly to resemble Corben’s grotesque faces – and at least manages to evoke proper dread.

► Hellboy: The Crooked Man arrives in UK cinemas 27 September.