Teaser for Hellboy: The Crooked Man brings the low-budget horror vibes
Hellboy: The Crooked Man is based on a 2008 limited series by Mike Mignola and artist Richard Corben.
It has only been a few years since David Harbour starred in the 2019 reboot of the Hellboy film franchise—a critical and box office failure, although Harbour's performance earned praise. But via Entertainment Weekly, we learned that there's a new reboot coming our way: Hellboy: The Crooked Man. The project wrapped filming in May and now has a teaser—inexplicably released in 480p [UPDATE: ONE Media posted a higher resolution version, now embedded above]—giving us our first glimpse of star Jack Kesy's (Claws, Deadpool 2) take on Mike Mignola's iconic character.
It's definitely a very different look and vibe from the previous big studio releases. Director Brian Taylor (Crank) is clearly leaning into the low-budget folk horror genre for this, but will fans embrace a bargain-basement Hellboy reboot—even one co-written by Mignola himself?
Mignola based his script on a 2008 Hellboy limited series he created, with artwork by Richard Corben. That story features a younger Hellboy wandering in the Appalachian Mountains in 1958 after "finishing up some stuff down South." He meets regional native Tom Ferrell, coming home after decades away. When he was young, Tom was initiated as a witch and has returned to atone for that, even though he has never actually practiced magic—apart from a magical "witch-bone" he carries with him.