Summary
A new trailer forHellboy: The Crooked Mandropped duringSan Diego Comic-Con, and it confirms the best thing about the movie teased in the first trailer wasn’t just a fluke. TheHellboy: The Crooked Mantrailer revealed the titular villain– at least a few glimpses of him – for the first time, and it’s a promising first look. Further, anexclusive Screen Rant SDCC 2024Hellboy: The Crooked Mancliprevealsjust how horror-tinged the movie will be– it will be firmly planted in the genre, and not merely incorporate some horror-fantasy elements like the previous movies.
Not much is known yet aboutHellboy: The Crooked Man’s story, but what is known is that it’s set in rural 1950s Appalachia. Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent, Bobbie Jo Song, get stranded in the village, but soon find themselves caught up in terrifying events as something sinister torments the villagers. All that’s known is that they’re led by a malevolent entity known only as the Crooked Man to the locals. Hellboy and Bobbie Jo have to figure out the occult mystery behind the Crooked Man and break his hold on the village.It’s a very different story from any otherHellboyadaptation, and that’s exactly why it’s so promising.
The Crooked Man Villain Is Comic Book Accurate
He’s A Genuinely Terrifying Character
Granted, there are only a few brief glimpses in theHellboy: The Crooked Mantrailer of the Crooked Man himself,but what they do show is very close to how he’s depicted in the comics. The trailer depicts The Crooked Man, a.k.a. Jeremiah Witkins, as being tall and gangly, with a rumpled stovepipe hat, scraggly beard, and hints of a deeply unsettling face. He is by far the most terrifying villain of theHellboymovies to date.
That terrifying visage is true to the comics. In the pages,Jeremiah Witkins is depicted in a similar human-but-not-quite sort of way. He has the same hat and scraggly beard, his face is a corpse-like pale gray and gnarled, as are his teeth, and he has one milky white eye. In the comics, Jeremiah Witkins was one of the first settlers of Appalachia and amassed a fortune through dirty dealings and cruelty. He was eventually hanged, but the Devil was so impressed with his work on Earth that he resurrected Witkins as a demon to collect souls for Hell. He’s a genuinely terrifying character and the movie is staying true to that.
It Confirms What The First Hellboy: The Crooked Man Trailer Teased
The Crooked Man Adaptation Is The Most Faithful To The Hellboy Comics Yet
The first glimpse of the Crooked Man proves what the first teaser trailer suggested:Hellboy: The Crooked Manwill be the most comic book-accurate adaptationofHellboyyet. Creator Mike Mignola’s script and heavy involvement always hinted at good things, butits faithfulness to the source material is undeniable after the SDCC trailer.Hellboy has always been a character who, at his core, is steeped in horror, the occult, the eldritch, and religious terror. While Guillermo del Toro’s adaptations are beloved for a reason, and 2019 reboot was better than anticipated,Hellboy: The Crooked Manmight be the best of the adaptations thanks to its reverence for the comics.
Hellboy: The Crooked Man
Hellboy: The Crooked Man is a film set in the 1950s, where Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent find themselves in rural Appalachia. They encounter a small community plagued by witches, led by the Crooked Man, a local devil intricately linked to Hellboy’s own past.
