If Neil Marshall’s 2019 Hellboy had you seeing red, then this rendition by director/co-writer Brian Taylor (Crank, Mom and Dad, Brave New World) will come as something of a relief. It’s the closest big-screen version yet to Dark Horse Comics’ shorn-horn superhero – creator Mike Mignola had a sizeable hand (ahem) in penning the screenplay – and favours gruff ‘n’ rough over the poetry of Guillermo del Toro’s lovingly crafted noughties movies (2004’s Hellboy, 2008’s Hellboy: The Golden Army).
Adapted from the 2008 The Crooked Man series, HTCM is set in Appalachia, 1959. The set-up sees our half-human, half-demon hero (Jack Kesy, nailing the sarcasm-and-soul combo) team up with a rookie Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense agent, Bobbie Jo Song, (Adeline Rudolph, underused) to battle the region’s Devil (Martin Bassindale).
