Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024)

I watched this movie on Hulu.

I didn't know this movie even existed until I found it on Hulu a few days ago. When I first saw it on there, I assumed it was one of the two animated Hellboy movies, which I already own on DVD and was going to dismiss. However when I started looking at my DVD box, I realised they didn't have the same title, so checking again... Well surprise surprise this was actually a direct to video low budget live action Hellboy reboot movie made in 2024. I had never heard about it before.

Yet another recast for Hellboy, this time it's Jack Kesy putting on the red makeup and dawning the horns and big fist. He actually does a really good job in the role and played the character well.
That said, the low budget of this film really shows with the CGI especially, but also the Hellboy makeup and suit. Sometimes the stiff way the rubber on his face moves, or rather doesn't move, can be distracting. Sometimes it looks OK, but at certain angles when he's talking you can tell it's a rubber mask.
Still though, his acting is good. He of course can't embody the character as well as Pearlman did, but it's hard to get better than that perfect casting anyways.

So this film is more of a period piece, seeing Hellboy back in the 1950s taking on a small stakes story of some witches out in the woods around an old mining town. Small scale, cheep budget, just a handful of characters... pretty terrible CGI. But considering the shoe string budget this movie was made on, it looks pretty good for what it is.
It does look like just a fan film, but honestly I'm OK with that.

Full disclosure, I've never read any of the Hellboy comics, never played any of his games... heck I haven't even watched the two animated films yet even though I have them on DVD. I've seen the other 3 live action movies though.
This is easily better than that disastrous 2019 film. I'd have to watch the two Ron Pearlman films again to rank them next to this, but this is a pretty solid outing considering what it is and the budget it was made on.
I think the plan is they will continue to make stand alone low budget Hellboy movies like this for direct to video/streaming, and I can only hope they turn out at least this good or better.

Mistake Status: I caught one in my first watch. I do plan to do a deep dive into all the Hellboy movies for mistakes in time. Not sure when I'll start that. I may even do this one first.

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