Movie · 2024 · Fantasy, Horror, Action · 1h 40m · R · English
Curator score: 0.5/10 (54K ratings)
Something crooked this way comes.
Overview
Hellboy and a rookie BPRD agent get 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.
Ratings
Curator score: 0.5/10
IMDb: 4.5/10
Letterboxd: 2.28/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 40%
Metacritic: 44
TMDB: 5.2/10
Director
Brian Taylor
Production
Dark Horse Entertainment, Millennium Media, Telepool, Campbell Grobman Films, Nu Boyana Film Studios
Cast
Jack Kesy, Jefferson White, Adeline Rudolph, Leah McNamara, Hannah Margetson, Martin Bassindale, Joseph Marcell, Suzanne Bertish, Bodgan Haralambov, Carola Colombo, Siyana Nacheva, Anton Trendafilov, Jonathan Yunger, Michael Flemming, Nathan Cooper, Laura Giosh, William Knox, Svetlana Atanasova, Elsie Chan Ba, Tsveta Dimova
Curator Review
Verdict
A scrappy, low-budget Hellboy entry that leans hard into folk horror, practical effects, and a 1950s Appalachian mood. It’s likely to satisfy viewers who want a darker, more comic-faithful detour, but the thin plotting and rough execution make it an uneven watch for everyone else.
Best for
Hellboy fans curious about a faithful adaptation of a darker comic story
Viewers who enjoy folk horror, witches, and rural gothic atmosphere
Fans of practical creature effects and modest, grindhouse-style genre filmmaking
Audiences open to a stripped-down, TV-pilot-like superhero horror hybrid
Skip if
You want the polish, wit, and visual grandeur of the Guillermo del Toro Hellboy films
You need a tightly plotted, emotionally rich fantasy-horror story
Low-budget effects and rough edges pull you out of a movie
You are not already invested in Hellboy lore or Mignola-style worldbuilding
Overview
Hellboy: The Crooked Man is the kind of genre oddity that can look like a compromise and still feel oddly committed. It trades spectacle for atmosphere, sending Hellboy into a haunted Appalachian backwoods story that plays more like folk-horror pulp than a conventional superhero sequel. The 1950s setting, witches, and practical creature work give it a grimy charm that some viewers will absolutely respond to.
Worth noting
At the same time, the movie’s limitations are hard to ignore. The story feels compressed, the pacing is uneven, and the whole thing has the shape of a pilot or a rights-preserving stopgap rather than a fully realized theatrical event. If you come in expecting the emotional sweep or visual confidence of the best Hellboy adaptations, this will feel small and underpowered.
Bottom line
Still, there is a niche appeal here. For viewers who like their comic-book movies closer to backwoods horror, with a meaner tone and a little more weirdness, it has enough texture to be worth a look. For everyone else, it is probably more interesting as a curiosity than as a satisfying standalone film.
Top Letterboxd reviews
André (3.5★) · 757 likes
There's no denying that this is a bold one. The Crooked Man is one of the darkest Hellboy short stories in the comics, and you need to have some background to really appreciate it. The movie adapted it very faithfully, but I don't think it will captivate anyone who isn't initiated into Mike Mignola's work. If this were set in the Guillermo Del Toro/Ron Pearlman universe with a reasonable budget, it could be a horror classic.
Now apparently with two flops in a row, I'm afraid we won't see Big Red on the big screen for a while.
2024 Ranked
Justin Decloux (3.5★) · 702 likes
HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN was always a cursed project.
Kinda like Big Red himself!
It was made (seemingly) to keep the rights to the character, entirely shot in Bulgaria, and severely underfunded. Millenium Films, which produced it, is on the edge of bankruptcy. Hence, it being distributed by Ketchup Entertainment.
Most fatal of all, it cannot get out from under the shadow of the two Del Toro films.
But even with all that, I found it pretty damn charming.
It's… more
Kyler The Film Fox 🦊 (0.5★) · 345 likes
What in the Hellboy did I just fucking watched?
corey👻 (2★) · 244 likes
what in the robert eggers was this
Rafael "Mister Movie" Jovine (3★) · 225 likes
Little intro to those who cares about my movie watching experience…anyone else can just skip to the review
So yesterday was the second time in my entire life that I had ever walked out of a theater. I went in to watch this “documentary” about the meaning of the Book of Revelation, and what I got instead was some thinly "researched," AI-made (and probably written), YouTube video that somehow found its way onto the big screen. So yeah, I came… more
2001 · Adventure, Horror, Action · 2h 31m · R · Curator 3.8/10 (127.6K ratings) · Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Philo, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Blends period adventure, monster-hunting, and horror textures in a way that should appeal to genre-mix fans.