HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN Director Says He Approached the Horror Film Like a Stephen King Adaptation
You know, I’ve actually liked what I’ve seen from this new Hellboy movie, Hellboy: The Crooked Man, which is an R-rated reimagining of Mike Mignola's comic books.
I obviously love what Guillermo del Toro and Ron Perlman did with their films, and it’s a shame that they never got to finish their trilogy, but this next movie looks like it could be a lot of fun!
Jack Kesy takes on the role of Big Red in this adaptation and this time the story is set in the 1950s, which is cool! I like that we are getting a Hellboy period movie. On top of that, this is 100% going to tell a horror story!
In the film, Hellboy teams up with a rookie BPRD agent named Tom Ferrell and find themselves stranded in 1950s rural Appalachia.
“There, they discover a small community haunted by witches, led by a local devil with a troubling connection to Hellboy’s past: the Crooked Man.” The story will “expand Hellboy’s world through one of the most beloved issues of the comic series.”
During a recent interview with GameRadar+, director Brian Taylor talked about the horror aspect of the film saying: “It's a horror story, it’s a horror film – it’s very simple.”
He went on to say that he approached the movie like he would approach an adaptation of a Stephen King novel.
Taylor shared: "I took to this like, 'This is an adaptation. I'm adapting the story the way I would adapt a Stephen King story, it's all there in the texts. I'm just gonna execute it with as much love and care as we can.'
“I think fans of the original comic book are gonna love this. I know already like there's people online who’ve seen the teasers and things like that and they're like, 'This is the comic.' That’s what we want."
Taylor also explained that it was important to keep this Hellboy movie separate from what we've seen on screen before.
He said: "I knew we weren't gonna be referential to the other films at all, they're their own thing. They're great but this is not a this is not a space opera, right? It’s a folklore story, it’s contained. It's an attempt to make things a little simpler, I think.
“I kind of feel like movies have got really, really complicated. And we're talking about this I mean, movies nowadays, it's like two or three hours long and an hour of that people explaining things and I still don't understand it."
"It makes me tired. I think a beautiful folk horror story is a simple thing, and that's how we approached it."
Well, I hope that he pulls this off! I hope that his Hellboy movie will deliver a good time and a strong story. That’s all I’m asking for.
The movie also stars Adeline Rudolph (Resident Evil), Jefferson White (Yellowstone) as Tom Ferrel, Leah McNamara as Effie Kolb, Joseph Marcell as Reverend Watts, Hannah Margetson as Cora Fisher, and Martin Bassindale as the Crooked Man, among others.
Hellboy: The Crooked Man is set to be released in 2024.