Hellboy: The Crooked Man is the upcoming superhero horror film that is based on Mike Mignola’s limited series, The Crooked Man, marking the fourth live-action Hellboy film. Set in the 1950s, Hellboy (Jack Kesy) partners up with Bobbie Jo Song (Adeline Rudolph), a rookie BPRD agent, as they help out a young man named Tom Ferrell (Jefferson White) and investigate a small community haunted by witches.

“I think the Hellboy in this movie is a younger version, not necessarily physically or aesthetically because he’s very similar, maybe size-wise – we kept a youthful size to him instead of a full big guy,” Kesy tells Nerd Reactor. “But as far as the energy he carries and the feelings he’s harboring, a level of humanness and vulnerability of just the guy who wants to listen to his radio and maybe take a chick out to the dance, but he looks a little different, and he’s kind of bummed out.”

“We were shooting in Bulgaria, and we had incredible sets,” Rudolph explained. “And what was so cool is a lot of these sets were practical sets. There’s a church that we shoot at, and this church actually exists outside on this field. And all these outdoor scenes were so creepy and magical and powerful. It was super fun. It was scary, but fun.”

Tom Ferrell is an integral character in Hellboy: The Crooked Man, and Hellboy and Bobbie Joe are roped into his drama.

“So I’m a guy who, at a young age, fell in love with a witch and sold his soul to the devil,” Jefferson White said. “And now as a young man, he’s coming back to his hometown to try to get his soul back. And I found that to be a really compelling, very human journey. And he’s got so much room for growth. He’s kind of a goofball, but he manages to stumble into Hellboy and Bobbie Joe, who managed to pull him along. So there’s a ton of room for growth. I think the character really leaps off the page. He’s super vivid in the book. Yeah, so it’s so fun. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the source material, so it’s a little intimidating, but it’s also just such a fun world to dive into.”

The story for Hellboy: The Crooked Man is smaller in scale and isn’t about the end of the world.

“Well, it’s always been my favorite Hellboy story,” Mignola said. “And I’ve done some stories that are very, very short that I like, but this one was a good medium length, and it was Hellboy the way I was always most comfortable with Hellboy before the whole beastly apocalypse stuff, end of the world stuff. It was just him as a guy having an adventure. A good, solid beginning and end.”

“This is a contained folk horror story, which is what you know the essential Hellboy is,” Taylor added. “And it’s dark and it’s shadowy, it’s things that rustle around in the woods, and it’s witches. It’s not a space opera. This is a folk horror film.”

About Hellboy: The Crooked Man

Synopsis: In the 1950s, Rookie BPRD agent Bobbie Jo Song is tasked with delivering a spider to the BPRD, but must seek Hellboy’s help when things go awry. Together, they travel to Appalachia to take on the Crooked Man, who has been sent back to Earth to collect souls for the devil.

The film is written and directed by Brian Taylor (Crank) with Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden also serving as writers. It’s based on the comic by Mike Mignola.

The film stars Jack Kesy (12 Strong), Jefferson White (Yellowstone), Adeline Rudolph (Resident Evil), Joseph Marcell (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air), Leah McNamara (The Gentlemen), and Martin Bassindale (On Chesil Beach).

Hellboy: The Crooked Man will be coming out in the Fall of 2024 and is distributed in the U.S. by Ketchup Entertainment. The film is rated R.