'Hellboy: The Crooked Man' Reviews: Film "proves to be a satisfying comic book adaptation in a year marked by far more expensive misfires like Madame Web and Joker: Folie à Deux"

         On October 8, 2024, Ketchup Entertainment released 'Hellboy: The Crooked Man', which has received predominantly negative reviews, currently holding at 40% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the film, "Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent find themselves stranded in 1950s rural Appalachia. They soon discover a community of witches led by a local devil who has a connection to Hellboy's past." The ensemble cast includes Jefferson White, Jack Kesy, Adeline Ruddolph, and Leah McNamara. But what did the critics say?

        Aidan Kelley of Collider says, "Hellboy: The Crooked Man is unfortunately a bit of a mixed bag. For every promising pro, there is also a contentious con, and some promising ideas are executed well while some less stellar concepts also sneak in." Adding, "Brian Taylor previously promised that this would be a very different Hellboy movie compared to what came before, and he delivered on that promise with The Crooked Man. Tonally, this does feel like a huge and honestly welcome departure from the on-the-nose action movies that preceded it, feeling much closer to something like Constantine rather than the prior Hellboy films. There's still some levity and humor to keep a comforting, loose connection to the cinematic origins of the character, but it's reined in and represented uniquely. Sadly, the horror vibe isn't always done justice, primarily through some very cheap jumpscares, including some very out-of-place ones toward the end."

       Anthony Morris of It's Better in the Dark notes, "There are rough edges here that feel more the result of an uneven script and low budget than firm intentions. But if this film manages to chart a new direction for Hellboy - smaller in scope but bigger in strangeness - that wouldn't be such a bad thing." Continuing, "While Hellboy himself remains the same character here, this is a pretty big pivot to small scale horror for the big screen version, in ways that those looking for pulp action might find off-putting. There's no evil end-of-the-world cult or giant monsters or Nazi hold-outs to punch here: ok, there are a few zombies at one point. But this is much more about a creeping sense of dread, of people stumbling into a place that's gone rotten with bad magic. A lot of the small moments are memorably creepy. There's a witch who leaves her skin behind to roam the woods as a raccoon; another witch rides a horse that turns out to be someone's enslaved father. The main evil haunting the mountain is called The Crooked Man, a walking hanged corpse who sells souls to the Devil for a cent apiece in an attempt to rebuild his long gone fortune."

       Jesse Schedeen of IGN Movies writes, "Hellboy: The Crooked Man never really reaches the heights of the two Guillermo Del Toro-directed films that launched Hellboy’s cinematic career, nor is it as frustratingly lousy as the 2019 reboot. This third attempt at a live-action Hellboy franchise falls comfortably in the middle. It does a solid job of adapting the seminal source material while adding a few necessary embellishments. And while the low-budget trappings often work against the film’s horror elements, The Crooked Man nonetheless proves to be a satisfying comic book adaptation in a year marked by far more expensive misfires like Madame Web and Joker: Folie à Deux."

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