A B-movie superhero

Two decades ago, Hellboy He burst onto the Hollywood scene with two blockbusters Eccentric and baroque, directed by Guillermo del Toro, and with Ron Perlman exuding charisma beneath the prosthetics and red skin of the infernal anti(super)hero born from Mike Mignola's comics. After the failure that was the character's revival under Neil Marshall's direction in 2019, Hellboy: The Crooked Man It returns to the screen with the coordinates of a modest production made on the fringes of the industry.

From the outset, the approach to this de-escalation should connect with the formal essence of the work, since Mignola is a cartoonist who has assimilated the economy of language of B-movies: his panels minimize details, and are often flooded with black to create expressionistic scenes that show the. In this sense, the choice of raw material ofThe Twisted Man It is revealing, since it is a short story, detached from the grand arcs of the character's mythology, and drawn with Richard Corben's voluptuous style. A tale of witches in the Appalachian woods, close to folk horror, in which the titular half-demon has an eminently contemplative role.

Mignola, who acts as producer and co-writer, seems to be testing the waters for an audiovisual reinvention of his creation in pocket format, but is betrayed by the direction of Brian Taylor, known for the hyperbolic action of CrankThe film attempts to force the material into its familiar comfort zone, employing flat cinematography that, instead of working in the shadows, exposes the company's shortcomings and, above all, the protagonist's meager screen presence—Jack Kesy, who dresses up as Hellboy without truly embodying him. This deficiency permeates the entire film, which, despite Mignola's involvement, feels like fan fiction.