Hellboy: The Crooked Man Trailer Will Make You Miss Guillermo Del Toro More Than Ever

From one of the directors of "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" comes ... another "Hellboy" movie reboot! The first trailer for "Hellboy: The Crooked Man" has landed, boasting a screenplay co-written by Mike Mignola, who created the Hellboy character for Dark Horse Comics in 1993.

The big red boy with the sawed-off horns was first brought to the big screen by Ron Perlman in the Guillermo del Toro-directed movies "Hellboy" (2004) and "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" (2008). But after disappointing box office returns for "The Golden Army," a third movie from del Toro was cancelled. The eponymous character wasn't resurrected until 2019, with "Stranger Things" star David Harbour taking over the role in what /Film's review described as "one of the worst comic book movies ever made."

In "The Crooked Man," Hellboy is played by Jack Kesy, who previously tangled with the world of comic book movies as Black Tom Cassidy in "Deadpool 2," and more recently played a gun dealer in David Fincher's "The Killer." Here's the synopsis for "Hellboy: The Crooked Man, courtesy of Entertainment Weekly:

Based on the comic-book miniseries of the same name by Mignola and artist Richard Corben, "Hellboy: The Crooked Man" is set in the 1950s and costars Adeline Rudolph ("Resident Evil") as a rookie agent of the BPRD (the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense) who teams up with Hellboy to protect the residents of Appalachia from the creepy Crooked Man, who is collecting souls for the devil.

With each new "Hellboy" movie reboot, it's hard not to wistfully think of what del Toro's "Hellboy 3" might have been. The 2019 reboot with Harbour was a major box office flop, even with a restrained (for a comic book movie) $50 million budget, and the budget has been reigned in a lot more this time around. There's some decidedly dodgy CGI in the trailer for "Hellboy: The Crooked Man" and in places it does feel a little like a fan-made movie.

That said, it's hard to resist a horror movie set in the Appalachian mountains, and this is definitely a more interesting direction to go in than a generic superhero plot or (god forbid) another origin story. The movie is directly based on a "Hellboy" comic book arc from 2008, and the small glimpse of the titular villain that we get is suitably creepy. The Hellboy make-up also strikes a nice balance; unlike Harbour, Kesy doesn't appear to be buried under so many layers of prosthetics that he can't emote. 

What the hell(boy)! Let's give one more reboot a chance.

"Hellboy: The Crooked Man" doesn't yet have a release date, but the trailer says it's "coming soon."