A freight train at full speed goes off the rails to the raucous rockabilly Knees Shakin’ Don Terry. A bald devil, an Asian woman, and a giant demon-possessed arachnid fly out of the carriage. A common occurrence in Appalachia in 1959. The devil is none other than Hellboy, an Asian agent known even in that wilderness, Bobby Joe Song from the Bureau of Investigation of Paranormal Activities (BRPD), an arachnid – their cargo, which should be delivered to the BRPD for experiments. Spidey has other plans, so he quickly hides in the ventilation of a coal mine, which is riddled with the surrounding foothills.
Don Terry – Knees Shakin’
Capitalism plus electrification of the whole of North Carolina
Following the trail, Hellboy and his partner find themselves on the edge of poverty and despair, hidden behind irony.: “Do you have a phone? “Yes, in the back room, next to the color TV and the chicken crying silver dollars.” In the hut of the locals, a boy is discovered who has become a victim of witchcraft, which the local witches are having fun with. The witches are run by a mysterious Crooked man. Veteran Tom Ferrell (Jefferson White, “Yellowstone”), who has returned home after long wanderings, has his own score for the Crooked Man. Hellboy (Jack Casey, “Guns”) and Bobby Joe (Adeline Rudolph, “Riverdale”) decide to help Ferrell deal with bluegrass Azazello.
Mike Mignola is a brilliant graphic artist whose work is recognizable by its first touches. His play with chiaroscuro is reminiscent of Caravaggio, and the lines seem to be trying to repeat Brueghel the Younger with someone’s petrified hand, without losing a certain grace. Mignola first showed his “Hero from Hell” on the pages of comics in 1993. Since then, the “Hellboy”, a lover of cigars and an uncompromising cat lover, has managed to conquer the hearts of smokers, cat lovers and small demons. Master of Magic animation Guillermo Del Toro (“Pinocchio”, 2022) created his own Hellboy dilogy, picking up the darkness pouring from each ink fragment of these hand-drawn novels. Because the most interesting thing about Mignola’s drawing is blacked out.
A simple priest
Eleven years later, Hollywood functionaries, who are constantly itching, but still will not find where to scratch, decided to undertake the first relaunch of the franchise. The shaggy ones scratched, of course, in the wrong places, so “Hellboy’2019” forced film critics to cough up angry fur (one film critic friend refused pate for a week at all), and the audience did not rush to the cinemas at all, giving home film critics valerian and milk. Although David Harbour, who played Hellboy at this stage of history, did everything he could. Not going to give up, the ferrets of the “Dream Factory” licked the holes in the budget, after which, after waiting five years, they gave ridiculous money for a new restart and sent the film crew to Bulgaria.
Mike Mignola is a great storyteller who knows how to weave Slavic myths with Polynesian superstitions. His Hellboy is a half-cowboy, half-samurai who learned how to behave while watching TV at a military base. John Wayne and the Seven Samurai. Shake and mix well. Every Mignola story about Hellboy has the strongest foundations, from the myths of Cthulhu to the Gaelic tales of Cuchulainn. The basis for the Hellboy movie: The Crooked Man served as the mythology of Appalachia, carefully collected and, like Pavel Petrovich Bazhov, reinterpreted by the writer Manly Wade Wellman. The old pagan beliefs of the Scottish settlers are intertwined with the spiritual vision of the indigenous tribes. Merle Travis wrote his best songs about the plight of miners here. Here, Hellboy will take out all the evil witches and lock them up with the Moonshiners.
Agent Joe and the Witch
The children’s song Crooked Man is said to be in the Russian version, translated by Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky.:
Crooked legs,
And he walked for a century.
Along a crooked path.
In the context of this story, the last stanzas should also be recalled.:
The crooked woman
Barefoot in the swamp
She jumped like a toad.
And it was in her hand.
The crooked stick,
And flew after her
A crooked jackdaw.
In the Crooked Man comic book mini-series, Mike Mignola decided to limit himself to writing a story, leaving all the visualization work to Richard Corben. And Corben’s drawing style turned out to be absolutely accurate for the small myth of rural America. Director Brian Taylor (“Adrenaline”), in turn, brilliantly reproduces this style on the screen.
Hellboy looks different from Ron Perlman’s classic look, but no less lively and cool. Although, apparently, he does not have access to Cuban cigars yet, he smokes cigarettes. He jokes in the spirit of the era: “This house is shaking harder than Elvis’ ass!”
There is no Asian agent in the original comic, but this does not prevent the story from developing in the spirit of the mysteries of European immigrants, vividly depicted once by Washington Irving, and later by Manly Wellman. Ivan Vatsov‘s cinematography from the Balkan “Appalachians” is reminiscent of the first “Sinister Dead”, as well as special effects. Mike Mignola personally participated in writing the script.
Where are we going with the dude?..
As a result, in addition to minor quibbles from the “effect-eaters”, the new “hellstern” has only one drawback: the creators did not initially plan a blockbuster, filming an absolutely chamber-like, location-bound story, whereas the public wanted a new Del Toro. It didn’t match. The rental failed. This will not affect the BRPD’s activities in any way. Anung Un Rama is also an Elvis fan, that’s where the sideburns come from. There’s also Louvin Brothers in the soundtrack. Don’t rub against the ratings, Moon Dogs, enjoy watching!
The Louvin Brothers – Sinner You’d Better Get Ready
The Moon Dogs are already enjoying watching))