Wine and...Movies: HELLBOY: THE CROOKED MAN (2024) w/ Jon Westoff and Matt Harding

The 4th live action Hellboy feature film, the second reboot, this time aiming for a lower budget (~$20M) folk horror themed entry witha younger Hellboy and a story pulled straight from the comics. How does it stack up to the previous three?

We're joined today by special guests JON WESTHOFF and MATT HARDING, bth hailing from the indie comic book landscape.

Jon Westoff is the publisher of "Part Time Comix" and writer of DRUMSTICKS OF DOOM, CHILD POSSESSION SERVICES, DEPOWERED, BULLETPROOF CHICKEN, L.C.S. (Local Comci Shop / Last Comic Shop).
https://x.com/parttimecomix
https://www.instagram.com/part_time_comix
parttimecomix.storenvy.com
https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/parttimecomix/created

Matt Harding - Matt is a bay area comic artist and writer who's worked on projects such as Dead Beats 2, All the Devils are Here, Hamilton, GWAR, The Not Forgotten Anthology, Rick and Morty, and Stan Lee's Lucky Man: Bracelet Chronicles. He writes, illustrates, edits, and animates comics in a variety of mediums.
https://www.matthardingart.com
https://twitter.com/matthardingart
https://www.instagram.com/matthardingart

THE WINES (and Fireballs!)
JON'S FIREBALL
Hellboy 'Hellwater' Cinnamon Whiskey

MATT'S WINE
19 Crimes Frankenstein Cabernet Sauvignon

DALLAS'S WINE
2019 Josh Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon

DAVE'S Wine:
2020 Yves Leccia "E Croce" Patrimonio Rouge (Corsica)

Transcript

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0:15

He's Dave and I'm Dallas and we have opinions on just about everything. Sometimes they're on point and sometimes they go down better with a glass of wine. Join us. This is the Wine and Podcast. Welcome everyone to Wine and the podcast where we pair wine with entertainment, delude ourselves into thinking you want to hear what we have to say about different pieces of pop art and culture, but know for a fact that you need to hear what we have to say about wine because who knows anything about wine? We sure don't. Well, that's not true. We actually totally do. And we can help you find the perfect pairing for whatever it is you're planning to read, watch or listen to. But before we get started, please make sure to hit that follow button and subscribe. It does help this podcast grow and reach new listeners. At least please leave a rating and or review as well, because that also helps us grow and reach new listeners and leave a five star review. If you're going to leave a review, don't quibble, don't equivocate. Just leave that five star review. You know, you love us. Why else are you leaving a review? you hate us. Well, then don't leave a review. Send us a peevish email instead. Send that to wine. The letter N POD wine and pod at gmail.com. will take. your feedback very seriously. Don't leave that review if you hate us, just send the email. All right. And you can also find us on Substack, wineand.substack.com where you'll be the first to know when new episodes drop. Get in-depth show notes, sometimes uncut versions of these episodes, bonus pairings, articles, chats, pairing directories, wineand.substack.com. Be a cool kid, drink the wine cooler aid. Join us on Substack. Okay, folks, today we are chit chatting about the latest Hellboy movie as part of our Spooktober event. Hellboy, The Crooked Man, the brand new reboot of the franchise based on the limited series slash storyline of the same name from the Hellboy comic books. Crooked Man is an attempt to make a lower budget, roughly 20 million, for a folk horror themed series of films featuring a younger Hellboy. We'll see how this first one does. Directed by Brian Taylor of Mom and Dad fame, the Nick Cage, Selma Blair movie, if anyone saw that, shout out. And the TV show, Happy! Fame as well. Brian Taylor is also one half of the Neville Dean Taylor duo, which you might remember directed and wrote Crank and Crank Two and Ghost Rider Spirits of Vengeance back in the day. And I swear by Ghost Rider Spirits of Vengeance. I was super hyped to get into this hell boy. Let me tell you. The film was written by Taylor alongside Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and regular Hellboy comic writer Christopher Golden and stars Jack Keesey as Hellboy, Jefferson White as Tom Farrell, Martin Bassendale as the Crooked Man, Joseph Marcel as Reverend Watts, Leah McNamara as Ethy Kolb, a very important character in the comic series, actually a sequel, The Return of Ethy Kolb, Hannah Margatson as Cora Fisher, and the actual second lead in the movie, a character created just for the movie, Adeline Rudolph as Bobby Joe Song. The film was released in limited theatrical in the UK and other parts of Europe and was released VOD in North America on October 8th, just two days prior to the recording of this episode. So with us today, with me in Dallas today are two very special guests with us, both hailing from the indie comic book world as does Hellboy himself. So we have with us John Westoff. publisher of part-time comics and writer of Drumsticks of Doom, Child Possession Services, D-Powered, Bulletproof Chicken, and LCS, an acronym that usually stands for Local Comic Shop, but this is a post-apocalyptic tale, and it also kind of stands for Last Comic Shop, and all about comic collecting in the post-apocalypse. And with us here today is also Matt Harding. Matt is a Bay Area comic artist and writer who's worked on projects such as Dead Beats 2, All the Devils Are Here, Hamilton, the not forgotten anthology, Rick and Morty and Stan Lee's Lucky Man Bracelet Chronicles. He writes, illustrates, edits and animates comics in a variety of mediums. All right gents, welcome to Wine and it's so good to have you with us here today. And are you stoked to talk about Hellboy the Crooked Man? John, are you stoked? answer is yes. All right. I'm very stoked or otherwise I would have. fake that I was sick or something. He's like, yeah, wine and I don't know like, hellboy. Okay, now I'm interested. Matt, are you stoked? Unbelievably stoked. Yeah. I had a lot of fun watching this and I had a lot of fun drinking and watching this movie at the same time. Nice, nice, nice. So as a question for both of you actually to get us started off and this was not a part of the litany of questions I sent you in advance to prepare for us. This is just gonna be off the cuff. Are you too much of drinkers in real life? I forget if you're much of a drinker, John. I should know this answer, but I don't know this answer. But do you partake of beers? Do you partake of wine? Do you partake of canned cocktails? We'll take White Claw. We take White Claw. We had Travis Gibbon. We had to go with White Claw with him. So as refined or unrefined as your palate is, are you regular drinkers? John, do you drink very often? No, I'm once a month guy, maybe sometimes even less. I don't have something social going on. I'm not much of in my old age, but I definitely don't partake in the white cloud. So when you drink, what do you drink? What do you like to drink? Captain and Coke, bourbon and soda, beer. I that. a mid-century man right there. Pilsners, wheat beers. like, you know, Sassons. I'm kind of more into the wimpier beers than the IPAs and the stouts and stuff like that. Absolutely. Absolutely. And Matt, how about you? You much of a drinker on the regular? Well, it sounds like John and I would actually make pretty good drinking buddies because not often, you know, like as I've gotten older, I've just kind of one or two here and there, you know, casual whiskey and Coke, that kind of thing. OK. All right. Whiskey, whiskey and Coke. are so that that is our that's where we're starting from, folks. We'll see what they wind up pairing with Hellboy the Crooked Man. So to get us started directly into Hellboy itself, so this is like you said Hellboy the cricket man, by the way cricket man playing cricket that would be awesome Hellboy as the the ultimate cricket player I would love to see that but know Hellboy's history he's from He is I was gonna say that would have fit in the Neil Marshall film as well, because I don't know. So have you all have all of us seen all the live action, the four live action Hellboy feature films? I'm assuming the answer is going to be yes. Started watching three, didn't finish three. I did not bother with the David Harbour one. No, I did not. OK, interesting. I've watched all of them and the cartoons too. yes. know John's seen the cartoons as well. And Dallas, don't call it three. It's a reboot. It's not three. No three, no four. Let's not put the numbers, especially because people are so bummed that Guillermo del Toro was not able to make the proper Hellboy 3 and finish his trilogy. So as everyone should know who is listening to this podcast, there have been four live action feature films now to date. There were the original two Guillermo del Toro films in 2004, 2008, Hellboy and then Hellboy 2, The Golden Army, if I'm remembering the title correctly. Then the 2019 Hellboy, to confuse things, just Hellboy again, but you have to know it's the new one and it's David Harbour starring as Hellboy and directed by Neil Marshall of Dog Soldiers fame. And I had never seen that before preparing for this podcast, but I watched it a couple of days ago for the first time just to see what all the, not praise, but the opposite of praise, to see what all the dishing of the dirt of this movie was and. I'm going to go on record here and say that Hellboy, 2019 Hellboy with David Harbour, it's not bad. It's different than the Guillermo del Toro's. It's trying for a tone and aesthetic. A couple of people who are panning on it were like, they tried to make Hellboy into Deadpool. And I'm like, calm down. is not. They are not. It is not that bad. They're not making him that funny or that off the cuff or he's not fourth wall breaking or anything like that. But they definitely were trying to go for a Marvel movie style. I could tell, like with a lot of quipping, a lot of humor, and they even had the two cut scenes during post-credit sequences, just like a Marvel movie. was like, damn guys, you are like not even trying to hide it. You want this to be a Marvel franchise with Hellboy. Now that said, I've gone on, I'm a Letterboxd user, if anyone here knows what Letterboxd is, the film review website and whatnot. It is littered with nothing but half star and one star reviews for the for the David Harbour Hellboy. And that's a little histrionic. Like it is there in the course of bad cinema out there and not even so bad. It's good. But like bad, bad cinema. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Because once you go to half star, it's like, guys, there's nowhere further to fall. Like this is not the bottom of the barrel at all. I'd give it three. I it's like it's a well made. It does try to do way too much in two hours. But it's the opposite of bloated or it's the opposite of what a lot of TV shows and I think like two and a half hour Marvel movies often get, which is like, why is this this 30 minutes of this could have been trimmed. And this would have been and Hellboy 2019 is like this needed an extra hour to have this all this plot in here. Like this is Nutter Butters how much they're cramming in here. No, I do think it could have used a rewrite to like not try to do so much like focus folks, like it doesn't have to be the entire Hellboy epic in one two hour movie. But I liked it. And now I've seen all four. I've not seen the animated movies. So John, you might want to throw in the I'm about to ask everyone what their favorite movie of the franchise is. And we're going to start there. And John, you might want to throw in the animated movies if you do fair game. Go for it. I'm good. But also tell me what is your favorite live action one as well, because I'm not counting the the animated movies. I'm just counting the four live action. So, John, kick us off here. What is your favorite of the four and do the animated movies top all of them so far? Well, I will say I haven't watched the animated movies in a while. I do remember enjoying them quite a bit. They probably would have been neck and neck with the first Ron Perlman Guillermo del Toro movie for, you know, all this time. Although, again, I didn't partake in the 2019 I do understand that most people, like you said, either want to leave a one or a half star review or a five star review. We only go to leave reviews when we're excited or really hate something. So it was just mostly because my peers were saying, yeah, it's not really worth it. you know, when people that you respect their opinion of say, skip it. Why even put this, these images of Hellboy that I don't want in my head? I was really excited for Harbor's rendition. I thought he looked cool. I thought it was going to be really good. He does look really cool. Yeah. And it was actually really, Mignola came out afterwards and kind of to paraphrase was kind of be moaning ever entering into Hollywood and he just wants his creation back. that kind of made me see, well, if he's not into it, then I'm not. To be fair, he hated del Toro second help. And that one, I think I've only watched that one maybe twice all the way through. So I don't remember it being great if I even sat through it all in one sitting. So I really liked the first one. I like the animated ones. They're pretty close, but I'm going to say that this one is the best. Even over the animated ones. do believe Hellboy belongs to the animated universe and they should have continued those. That's where I think he would do best, especially with this big epic story. It's funny, I hear you say they tried to cram so much. Whereas in Crooked Man, they didn't. They got the right feel because you're never going to get to that whole arc. It's too much. Right? So why even? I mean, there's some seeds in there we'll talk about, but I will say Crooked Man. And again, it could be just the excitement of talking to you guys about it or that it's new, but... I thought it was really well done. All right, Matt, how about you? All right, I'm going to start off by saying I'm a huge Hellboy fan of the comics, movies, everything. So any disparaging things that I say actually kind of work towards what I like about Hellboy, right? I think that there's a lot of mess to everything that's Hellboy. The comics... If you go to read the comics, they're kind of a mess. You don't know where to start with like BPRD and stuff. You're like, don't know what's, you there's some stories that are small. There are some that are big and epic. You actually have to like really get in there and do some research. can't be a casual reader of it too much. You know what I mean? And thinking along that line, there are things that I think worked and things that didn't work with each movie. So I was trying to think of like what my favorite thing is, you know? Del Toro is one of my favorite directors. So I really like his versions of it. But at the same time, they're not really like the Hellboy comic Hellboy, right? I mean, they're like his version of it. And I love the second one because I really like all the creative stuff he did with like the troll market and just all that stuff. was just creativity thrown into a movie in many different ways. And I'd have to say that because of that, as far as like a live action Hellboy goes, I liked that one a lot. The 2019 one, as a fan of the comic, I liked, I was one of the maybe the only people who really, really liked that movie. Like I loved it. I actually went there and I was just geeking out the whole time. was like, there's Baba Yaga's house and there's the wild hunt and there's this and there's the Silver Lantern Club and like freaking out, know, Lobster Johnson, you know? But I went with my wife and I went with her grandfather. So my grandfather in And when we got out of that movie, was like, what the? Am I allowed to swim on this? He was like, what the fuck happened in this movie? Like, I don't even know what I was watching. Like, if you didn't know these things, you wouldn't had all the context. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which would have been very entertaining to watch someone with zero context, you know. It was, yeah. So like. Because it did his origin, right? And they go back and they're showing how the Nazis are doing this ritual. But then there are these Nazis that are all superhero like. And he was like, I don't get these. And then all of a sudden there's a Lobster Johnson guy showing up and he was just lost. You know what I mean? man. He liked the he liked the guns and stuff, that was about it. Yeah, he liked the guns and explosions. But I liked it. And then we'll get into more of the newest movie. But I do feel I feel like as a direction for Hellboy to go into, this one said it. Like this is, I'm down for these like, sci-fi channel, like B-movie, short story That's exactly what my first note says. Like this is a $20 million sci-fi episode and I'm here for it. I'm, yeah, and I'm into it. Like it doesn't need to be a superhero epic movie, right? Like it really doesn't. The cartoons are great, know, the video games were there are good things about the game. Like they had a video game that had Bruce Campbell playing Lobster Johnson. That was fun. You so like little bits and things of each one. So it's hard for me to to really choose what I like the most, you know. But if you had to lean towards one, are you think the twenty nineteen just tickled you the most in all the ways? I know I'm not letting you off the hook from a fan to the head. You know what? I'm actually going to say that Gun to the Head, this newest one. I'm going to say it. I love Del Toro and stuff, but as far as Hellboy goes, I feel like this was the one. Okay. Very cool. Dallas, how about you? I'm of two minds. I just remember that initial, I was so excited when the first Del Toro films came out, was this first two. It was just really great to see that character on the big screen and to see Del Toro's. you know, his filigree, his handy work, because it does kind of take it into his fantasy aesthetic. I did not stick around for the second act of, and I will say it again, argue with your mother, three. And so I probably should check, I will check back in with that film next week to this, but for... Pure cinematic appeal is the first one for me. I just enjoyed walking into that mind, that sort of palette. But I will say, in terms of relaunching and setting the bar for a new launch, suppose, this latest one, it is really pedestrian and it's really terrestrial in comparison to where the story's gone. It is really terrestrial and pedestrian. It's story of... So grounded. Grounded is the word you're looking for there, I think. No, pedestrian is pedestrian. It's pedestrian. Pedestrian is simple. It's a very simple story. It's a pretty simple I don't know if it's a simple story, man. It's a pretty simple story. I don't know if I agree with that. It's pretty simple story. But what I'm saying is, in terms of giving us a baseline, a jumping off point... that, you know, sky's the limit. I think this is kind of a great relaunch. It just is. It hits all the notes. Like I said, know, Dave and I, kind of bonded over our mutual love of not necessarily shitty movies or bad movies, but adequate film, well done film, you know, narratives. And I think they really took that sort of dark, sinister, terrestrial and pedestrian undertone of this Hellboy story and played it well and effectively. So... The first one is your favorite though, still. The OG del Toro. The first one is the one of the four I would probably watch again just for shits and giggles. So I'll go with Fair. Yeah, I think for me, kind of to echo what a couple of you have already said, I think all of us have pretty much said, this new one, I think for the first two thirds of it, I was like, no, I think this is going to be my favorite. of all of them. think it's going to trounce even the del Toros. The del Toros and I did I put on the first 40 ish minutes of the first one this morning just to double check because I have not revisited the del Toros in a long time. So I was like, you know what, is this just my memory telling me the del Toros are really, really good? And maybe I do need to see how dated they are. And so I have issues with this movie in the final act. that really kind of, was like, mm, I was with you, man. And then I feel like this one drops the ball a little bit to where I was a little more reticent to call this one the best. So I put on the OG 2004 Del Toro Hellboy. And yeah, I gotta say, I think that's still my favorite because that one, mean, watching those first 40 minutes again, I was like, Jesus Christ, this is... It's not the comics. is a superhero movie of that time. You know what I mean? Like how we made superhero movies pre-Marvel. And it feels very much that, but it's kind of a flawless version of It's singing on every level and the script is so fucking tight. like every line is like, and the performances that some of these actors are giving, like even just that opening at the Nazi base camp during World War II and even just some of the throw away. US Army members and what they're how they're I'm like, they're all like they're in a bet they're in a better movie than they are actually in like they're all really given it they're all this is great. So I got to give it back to the OG del Toro now. I have not rewatched the second del Toro in a long long time. I don't think I've seen it since the theaters because I hated it when I saw it in the theaters. It was not my bag. I know Del Toro is all about the creature building and the world building and that's like where he shines more often than not, especially these days. But for me, Del Toro, after Pan's Labyrinth, kind of like, for me, that's where he peaked on all of that. And ever since I've been like, okay, man, what else you got? Like, you're gonna do more than just creature build, right? And like, he's such a creature builder that I'm like, okay. I'm still waiting for the next Del Toro movie where the story sings like it does in the first Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth. And I feel like it hasn't in a long time. He got a little too into the world building and creature building. And I think he focuses so much there. I mean, you could say the same about so many auteurs like Ridley Scott is another guy who like he's so much about the aesthetic and the visual and what he wants to put on screen and how that feels that often his scripts suffer for the same. He's kind of on record as being like, yeah, the script, whatever the fuck. I'm really not that into it. Like I just, I can't care enough. And you can tell with some of these guys, like it's sort of like, come on guys, it's one missing piece. Can you just slip that in and you've got a full picture, a full frame. And it's like, it'll be everything in the kitchen sink if you can just. pay enough attention to that one final piece. And I feel like Del Toro has also been in this mode in the second part of his career. But that first Hellboy, still the best. Now, I do think this new Hellboy is my second favorite at this point, which I think let's dovetail this into the next question. Because when I first heard, and I'll start this one off for everybody, when we first heard that this would be a lower budget, more horror flavored entry, what were? our initial thoughts. Like, how did we go into this new movie? What were our expectations? What was our thinking for me? I thought it was fucking brilliant. I thought that was exactly what this franchise needed, especially because it just kept struggling at the box office as a big bloated superhero epic. And we'll also get to what we thought about it not getting a theatrical release in North America. But, you know, if it was going like doing it for 20 million and doing it in its more folk horror themes, which a lot of the comics are like, there are some epic storylines in Hellboy, but a lot of them are much more dialed back, you know, aesthetic horror pieces, where it's very much drenched in mood and atmosphere. And the goings on in the story are like, you know, The Crooked Man is a three issue limited series. It's not a long epic storyline. It's very straightforward. It's got a lot of creativity in it. And there's a lot of creativity, I think, in this Cricket Man movie as well. But yeah, my initial thoughts there was I was like, perfect. I was going into this thinking this is exactly what the franchise needed. Let's actually reverse this a little bit. Matt, you start us off after me. What were your thoughts on this new approach? So when I, someone had sent me the trailer to this movie without telling me what it was. Like I didn't realize I was watching a Hellboy trailer. I thought it was like, because I'm also a fan of like the conjuring movies and stuff. I thought it was I actually thought it was like conjuring the beginning or something. And and so, you know, I'm watching the trailer and then Hellboy shows up and I actually now now keep in mind, I like the movie, but I actually started laughing like I was like, what the hell is that? Hellboy's like, is there a hell in this? And it made me start thinking like I thought it was a parody actually at first, right? That very first trailer just because it was so low budget and everything. Kind of like how Saturday Night Live did the Mario cart. Yeah, Yeah, that kind of thing. it made me think like, that, you know, my first reaction was this is not good, right? And then so I went into it thinking this isn't going to be a good movie. And I think for the first 15 minutes, maybe even 20, I was put off by how low budget it was. Like, I'm not going to lie, I was right. Like there's a scene where he's walking. And you can actually see on his abs like squeak around the rubbery the chest plate as well Yeah, it all folds like you could tell that it's not real right and it kind of took me out of it a little bit but I think it was I think it's when you get to the church when the when you meet the the the priest and And you're seeing that actor like just kill it. the butler from? Yeah, think so. Is it? Yeah. That's when I was like, you know what? I kind of love this movie. Like I I actually really like this movie, you know, the fight with the spider. Like I think I think part of it was is that they hit you with the they hit you with the worst that the movie, in my opinion, is going to give you right off the bat. Right. Like they tear that bandaid off. They give you a bunch of weird angles from the camera. They give you that spider. They give you that the actor who plays the other guy, you know, the disposable guy, like, yeah, yeah, dead guy. Yeah. And he comes in and he delivers like just probably the worst dialogue in the movie. Like they hit you with the worst is going to get in my opinion. Where he was he say says, look, he's getting the heebie jeebies. I am the heebie jeebies. Yeah. I'm like, no. Like this is but then it kind of like it almost like Self realizes along the way and it almost becomes like a movie that I can't tell you why I like it so much But by the time you're getting to the end of this movie, I really liked it. Like every line was really funny I I like that Hellboy wasn't even really the main character because I feel like a lot of Hellboy stories are kind of like that He's just yep a It's just there Yeah, he's just a jobber who happens to be there and is going to something and help people. those first 40 or 50 years he was just jobber traveling around the country. As a matter of in the comic, that's how this starts. He was just wandering around and found a small town. Yeah. And in the Crooked Man comic, the whole spider part's not even in it. So that kind of threw me off a little bit also is because the whole reason that they were there was added, you know, and I was kind like, I don't know about this, but. But then they get to the thing, they see the kid on the ground and all that and the witch ball and all that stuff and they kind of get into it, you know? I don't think there need to be a big cast, so I think that was good. And like I said, you know, my first answer, kind of dig the low quality Evil Dead, original Evil Dead, you know, the first movie that was still kind of, you know, trying to be serious, you know what I mean? Like I kind of dig that quality to it. And I could watch 20 of these. You know, I mean, I I could watch one of these every weekend, you know? Yeah. The whole series. Yeah. John, how about you? What were your what were your thoughts going into this one? Well, I kind of groaned at first because, know, it's like, geez, didn't we just have another movie? I didn't even remember when the last one had come out. And I was like, this thing is just in hell. He just said he doesn't want to do a movie. Well, but then I found out that he was co-writing it. And Christopher Golden, you know, later I found out who is a huge part. of this entire universe. deserves a huge part of the credit, him and John Arcudi. And I thought that was a great choice. And I did not watch the trailer. I said, you know what? I don't, like to do that anymore. I'm not going to watch the trailer. I'm just going to go in. Once I heard it was low budget, I kind of winced a little bit, but then I, like you, I started thinking, well, wait a minute, that makes sense for Hellboy. And when I, when I heard the title, I was excited because the first Hellboy comic I ever read was The Crooked Man. Nice. This was actually, I was first introduced through the movies and I was not a good comics reader and didn't read a ton of independent at the time. Good friend of mine was a huge Hellboy fan. He's like, you've never read Hellboy? Let me mail you some comics. So this is the first one I read. And I've only read it once probably since In Trade. And so I was like, okay, I know the crooked man. know, the story sticks with you, the creepy Richard Corbin art, you know, that's, was a hard of it. Richard Corbin, RIP, an incredible artist. And I didn't remember a ton about the story. So, but I was like, remember it being creepy and there was this church and you know, the crooked man with his broken neck. So I was like, okay, I'm in, right? I'm like, I'm not going to watch anything. I'm just going to go in. I started seeing the stills and then I was like, it looks really bad in the stills. It looks like his costume doesn't look good. He doesn't look great as Hellboy, but we'll get into, as we talk about the movie. You know, I think, I think all of my fears, most of my fears went away once I saw the movie. So I went in with, you know, I was kind of- You were trepidatious. coming up. Yeah, it was. And honestly, if you hadn't invited me here, I probably wouldn't have rented it right away or bought it. I would have waited to see what people you never saw 2019 either. So yeah, that goes to show how you're like, I'm going to wait to find out if anyone loves this thing or not. And I do. I love Hellboy. I have a Hellboy shelf over here with all my Hellboy stuff. He's one that that universe is one of my favorite, especially Johann Krauss and Sir Edward Grey Witchfinder and I have all the hardcovers and everything. So to be honest with you, it's one of those series that like when I saw Spider-Man 3 in the theater, I said to myself, I'm never going to look forward to my favorite thing being on screen again. I'm not going to care. And I did the same thing with Hellboy. 3 that much? That's another one I'm very apologetic about. I've come around to it, but I think being in my mid-20s and being a huge Venom fan and having a Venom tattoo, was like, Venom, yes, this is the time for me. And then I was like, womp, womp. And so I said with Hellboy being another on that altar, and I'll probably be the same with the Max series when it comes out, I'm probably not as interested in making that, but this movie made me interested. So the trailer, I didn't watch, seeing the title, I think was a big home run. It's like, okay, you told us exactly what you want to do with this series. You're going to make it the grounded horror suspense that really Hellboy should be and explore a different part of his history. So that was cool. Right. just so you know, sorry, I just wanted to say, just so you know, John, most people like critics at the very least, don't know about audience reaction quite yet, but critics don't like this new Hellboy either. It's mostly been universally panned. So FYI on the 2019, you might want to give it a check out as well, because this is apparently something where I think Hellboy is a franchise is just like Post Del Toro. People just love to shit on it. I'm starting like, cause even though they have flaws, I'm like the way in which these movies get shit on is I'm like, this is extreme. Like this is, this is a weird mob hysteria going on here of like how hated and low these movies are. They don't make sense. I get that with like the Joker, right? Batman's been overdone. Why, why are they piling on Hellboy? know, give it a I just think it has a lot to do with how the shadow that Del Toro's renditions really cast at that moment in time. Was this pre Marvel or parallel to Marvel? It's Sam Raimi, Spider-Man all over again. Everybody thinks they were going to get the best version and they never got it. Yeah. I'm sorry. The video games. Sorry. It's like that with the video games, too. It's like that with with Hellboy just in general, I think, like critics and that kind of actually the question I was going to ask you. And I think part of the problem with it is, that so my favorite Hellboy book is the first one I ever read. And I don't know, and it sounds kind of like, the reason I wanted to bring that up is because John was saying his favorite one is Crooked Man. That's the first one he ever read, right? Your first introduction to it kind of sets the bar. Yeah. And I think Hellboy specifically is kind of like that. Like, even though, so the first one I read, I think was, it was the volume number four. It was the one with Lobster Johnson. They go to the castle. They're killing Nazis, right? And I love that one. And to this day, it's my favorite one. And it was was found in a bargain bin at like Comic-Con or something. You yeah, that makes sense. Why you look at 2019 movie then, because that that does match that flavor of Hellboy, one version of Hellboy more so than the other movies. Yeah, it does. Yeah. And so I kind of feel like everybody's first like venture into the Hellboy universe. It kind of like. It sets the standard for what you want it to be or what you're expecting. And then everything you see after that is so different from that first one that you don't know how to feel about it. You know what mean? And that's a theory at least, I don't know. No, I agree. think that makes sense. scientist. Yeah. I think the Del Toro version because that was, and it's one thing, like if the Hellboy movie was not, like if the Del Toro version was not beloved, if it didn't work out, if it didn't, if not many people saw it, if no one liked it when they did see it, that would be another story. But most people, at least at the time, really, really liked it. The second movie did even better. And so it's, I think the reboots are sort of like, it ain't broke, why are we fixing it? Kind of a thing. And people just aren't getting past that to some degree. But Dallas, we haven't gotten to you yet. What were your thoughts coming into this? I will be honest. I checked out of the Hellboy sort of arena after leaving number three or 2019 halfway through. So when this actually came up for the show, I remember... Reading it on the list. I texted Dallas and I'm like we're gonna do hellboy and he only the only thing he texted back was Mostly because I didn't I didn't realize that a new one had been promoted somehow. It just escaped my brain and so When I went to go watch this I was like god David harbour looks I thought it was watching this For the second time and going to make it all the way through but yeah, truly. I really honestly did And so I'm You really were not paying attention to the 2019 one. Jesus. no. Once I'm done, it's done. But I remember watching the first 15 minutes of this film thinking, OK, first of all, that's not David Harvard. And so I was like, OK, this is new film. it. But that first 15 minutes of this film just kind of blew my mind with how ridiculously pedestrian it was the it was the first fifteen minutes was so pedestrian because they really were just meandering through the tail they just were meandering through and the other thing that bugged the absolute shit out of me a sensory thing was if you guys notice maybe you didn't the score the the score is so heavy handed every beat has driving music behind it that is competing for the dialogue. It is a problem. I challenge you to go back and pay attention if you did. But it's a thing, that first 15 or 20 minutes. after I got through... The dialogue's not very important. No, not at all. Let's give it that. First of all, why are you making a movie? But I will say the first 15 minutes, to your point, John, it was so silly. It was silly. was just so silly. was just, it was just silly that I was just in just to see where this thing was gonna go. I was seeing how much crazier this was gonna get. So yeah, my expectations for this film were pretty low because I thought it was a different film. Okay, well, Jesus, next time. sorry. was just saying my favorite line was where she goes, she goes, we're screwed. And he goes, he says screwed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. I'm like, that makes no sense. OK. That is no way that's nice. Hellboy is like an old dad out of the 70s, know? Like he's so, that's how he is to me. He's all, mean, the thing about this version of Hellboy is yeah, he was all attitude or like, but it was also kind of, and I think it was on purpose. Like he's fronting the attitude, right? Like he's not even, he's still young. He's not even that cool. One of the things that kind of drove me nuts about that opening spider attack scene is I kept, like it kills the one dead guy number one. And then the girl is almost killed multiple times. I'm like, Hellboy is kind of just sort of standing there. And I'm like, Hellboy. I'm like, try. Move and help people. And he's just kind of standing there trying to be cool. And I'm like, no, dude, man, fight. Get going. And he gets going a little bit later after the girl almost dies twice. But he was a little overly slow to respond to things. He gets better as the movie goes on, but it was interesting that to, I can't remember if it was John or Matt who made this point. I think it was John. The point of how sometimes Hellboy is just there. Like he's not the point of the story, right? And in this case, he's there and it takes him a while because he could just walk away at any time. Like he's so not. Intether entwined with everything that's going on like everyone the bad guys would let him go to they'd be like, fuck off We don't we don't want you here either if he just wanted to leave they would let him leave and I think it's that moment when he Comes out and stops the guy from What is it his bone? Okay, the the lucky bone, right? And he comes out and he's like no no more deals Like we're gonna take care of this together. Like now I'm involved And from that point forward, he's very... It's like he's looking for a reason to care, which I actually appreciate in terms of the character arc, because that is very clear. It's clear that this version of Hellboy is looking for a reason to care and help. Yes. Which is good. Yeah. And I think, you know, again, going back to the comics, I think they tried to fit that in, you know, to one story. Really, that happens over time. You know, he doesn't understand where he fits. He's not human. Who is he? He saws off his horns because he's embarrassed. You know, so that is a lot of Hellboy. They did kind of force it and I was kind of noticing like, why is Hellboy such a dick? And then later, like you said, you realize, wait, they're making that part of his. So one, one. Nevermind. I'll wait on that. Go on. Wait on the villains also, like the villains don't care about him. Like, I thought that that's really cool about the comic and this movie showed it. is when he's like, what about me? You know, and they're like, he doesn't care about you. Like, he's not afraid of you or whatever. Like, let's go back to talk about Tom, you know? Right. He's like, I haven't made a deal with you. You know, I don't get your soul. Like, fuck off. Like, what are you even doing here? And I have to feel that was Mignola's heavy influence, because that is how he is. Like, everyone's like, yeah, I've seen you on Life magazine or whatever. Like, it's just this red thing that walks around the earth. But it's a good point, John, because he does they do make reference to that like two or three times. It is very sort of. flippant. yeah, that's a point. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So on that note, next question for everybody. How well did they blend because this is a folk horror kind of blumhousey as mentioned before, Matt mentioned that this was when he started the trailer, he thought this was like conjuring the beginnings. And so this has this sort of folk horror, blumhouse, low budget feel. How well did they blend Hellboy with that? How successful is this movie as that kind of reboot. John, let's start with you here. What do you think on that? Well, I think I think they blended it very well. Again, you hear the word low budget. You know, like I said, I kind of winced at first like, it's that low budget. Let's let's be honest. 20 million is like Blumhouse is five million and under. This is 20. Right. So it's not it's not that. But yeah. Right. And you definitely felt the budget at times. You're like, that camera shot was, they probably could have redone that. There was a few times where you're like, you know, we're a little spoiled with movies these days. But I think they did a good job. again, I think they picked the right story from Jump. The only thing I would say is that there was a lot of tight panel shots, which Corbin does a lot in the book too. But I Hellboy in general is about, you know, it's a lot of it's about Gothic scenery and Mignola's art is very, you know, the characters will be this big and it'll be this epic church. know, so I felt like I missed a little bit of that, but I think for the Crooked Band that worked and hopefully in the future they get a little more budget. Sometimes I think in low budget movies, right? They can't show much of the background. Maybe they don't have a lot Yeah, I don't I can't say why but I all say is for me I wanted to watch it on the big screen. I didn't get the chance So I had to watch it on a small screen So I think that might have hurt the feel a little bit of it for me But just watching it on my the small screen, know that the first time I felt like they nailed it I think they did the best they could with the budget they had I think the actors they chose were were really good for the most part. This is great and and And I forgot his name. Is it John Kelsey? Kesey. Jack Kesey. Jack Kesey. Yeah, I was hesitant on him too. His voice is a little gruff. You get used to it. you can tell he's doing a voice. But I thought he I thought he nailed it in the mannerisms, the way he flicks his, you know, the ash off a cigarette, all that kind of stuff. And I think that was a huge part of it. Well, the Bobby Joe song character makes fun of his voice, like within those first 10 minutes too. like, again, it's sort of like within those first 10 minutes, it takes all the rough edges off. And you it allows you to accept what this is and what it's what you're about to get. And then it just it flows much better after that initial opening. And then it's. But anyway, Matt, go ahead. Your thoughts on this. So I thought I think that there are parts of it where the where the with the the budget. I mean, there's a lot of it. You could see the budget, right? But there are parts where it works and where it doesn't. For instance, the raccoon. my God. Like. Dude, just get a trained raccoon. I'm sure there's trained raccoons out there. Could you just flown in somebody? bad. That's what I thought. And you only need the raccoon for the first like two feet. Then you can go to the right. You know, away like I ought to. I ought to be. That's great. So yeah, that moment. So that was like a sci fi movie that that was like a sharknado that raccoon. Right. But then when she like fills up, that was cool. You know, like, I mean, there are so I think. There are parts of it like his costume folding that I actually had to stop the movie, went and got my partner was like, hey, you got to see this. Like she's like, I'm not going to watch this movie, right? Because she's not too into Hellboy or whatever. Right. I went and I got her to see this. And yeah, was like his abs are folding like latex or whatever, whatever that material is. So there are parts of it. The spider. But then there are parts of it that actually, you know, like really well done. I thought like when she goes flying off the horse, I thought, OK, that looks like she's flying, you know, when the things are coming out of the grave and stuff, there's part there's a lot of parts of it where that budget didn't feel, you know. Horrible, as if 20 million is horrible, but you're right. But I actually want to ask you this, Dave, because you're a you're a ghostwriter, apologists, right, for the second spirit's emergence. Don't do this. Don't do this. There's a scene in that. Don't do this. Really quickly, because there's a scene in that movie that I felt like they must have run out of budget, right? Or something, because I didn't understand what was happening. And it's when he's fighting and it was a CG thing. I felt like maybe somebody just ran into a computer error or something and something happened and I don't know what it was. Right. And so he's fighting the group of guys and he like gets blown up or something or like knocked into the air for some reason he freezes in midair and then just starts spinning around remember that huh? Like what is that? Is that I I don't remember Ghost Rider ever doing that like I feel like that was a Well, I think that's it was sort of a so Neville Dean and Taylor because that was when they were doing it as a duo too and I don't know what your, actually this is sort of the next question that we were gonna hit. Is the directors, and then I'll answer this by way of answering this question. So what were our thoughts of Brian Taylor as a director coming into this? Like were we familiar with his work before? Were we familiar with the Happy TV show, the Mom and Dad horror film with Selma Blair and Nick Cage, which were his two solo efforts. He also did a movie called Biker Boys with a Z. back in 2003, back in the day, which I also kind of like. But as Neville Dean and Taylor, so I was, I hated the crank movies once upon a time. I despised them. And then I came to love them. And then I came to love Ghost Rider Spirits of Vengeance. think there's something about their very punk rock, and Gamer. Gamer's another one that was them, that I've also come around to loving. They have a very, this, it's not traditional punk spirit, but it's this sort of just, they have a punk energy to everything they do. And they love things that are very, that are very dynamic, very in your face, very wild in feel. Very visceral, yes. And they sometimes do it, in a way that quote unquote makes sense. Not that it ever really makes sense, makes sense, but in a way that makes sense. Sometimes they're doing it. You can tell, think Ghost Rider Spirits of Vengeance is one of these movies where a lot of the visuals are like, that's fucking cool. Let's do that. And they just do it. And that looks wild. Let's just do that. And it's just visual after visual, scene after scene, moment after moment of wild aesthetic that is just outlandish and WTF. And but after maybe 30 minutes of it, you're either I mean, you're either checking out, or you're you're settling in. And you're like, you know what, this is starting to work. I don't know why. But it's starting to work. And you're along for the ride. And it's a ride. And I do think that even that going up and spinning around is just one of those things where it's personal moment where it's like things are moving and then he's going down and then big explosion and big chains whipping everywhere and things falling apart. And it's like, that's what they do. If you've ever watched the crank movies, it's insanity, especially crank two. It's funny crank two is the one that really convinced me of them and their style because crank one was just restrained enough that I was like, this is dumb. then crank two was so outlandish. that I was like, I get it. I was like, I think now it's so beyond the pale. And I think that's what I love about Spirits of Spirits of Vengeance too, is it's so out there. It's so like, we don't give a F and we're just doing all of it. I'm like, yeah, especially with crank to crank to is just, it's just fantastic. is. If you're a person who drinks or enjoys a mushroom or cannabis, if you're a person who needs any of those aids to heighten the moment of viewing, fine. But if you're not, if you want to feel as if you are on some stuff, substance that alters your mind, watch this film. Crank Two is just a, it's the perfect shit show. It is a perfect shit show. It's so good. The casting's great. It doesn't, pretend or aim to do too much. It's just perfectly arse and fantastic. Yes. Now I will say Taylor as a solo director is not as wild as Neville Dean and Taylor were together. Neither of them are as wild as they were together. And I think they had a falling out, which is why they don't work together anymore. I think I actually don't know their story. But Taylor is the usually the better of the two. He's made better movies being on his solo career so far, because like mom and dad is fun. It's great. It's not wild like Crank and Crank 2 or Spirits of Vengeance. And then I think even in Hellboy, you can see though a lot of his, even in this movie, there are moments like the chapter headings and things like that where, and some of the transitions from a thing to another, where there is this edge of visceralness and an edge of like that same kind of punkish energy that like spikes here and there, even in Cricket Man, where a lot of it is very low key and a lot of it is very slow and plotting because it's meant to be, it's meant to be the slow brooding horror. But then you have these spiky moments of just like when the action starts or when we're transitioning from one thing to another, it's got this like fucking death metal-y edge to it that just sort of pops out of nowhere. And I can definitely see that from his Neville Dean and Taylor days where he always has that kind of somewhere in him. And I do think it spices this up for a low budget action horror movie, which it is still to some degree an action horror film. Like that is the part where I think his version of kineticism works really well with lower budgets. because it really is just in this style rather than in I have to have great special effects because I mean spirits of vengeance Yeah, like you said the CGI ain't great, but they're like, well, it's not great. Let's just have fun with it Let's make it wild because it's not going to look good. We know that much. It's not going to look real So let's just go to town with this shitty CGI But go ahead Matt. Do you have any real experience with this director or Neville Dean and Taylor? Have you seen any of these films? We've just listed off Yeah, I've seen so I've seen the ghost writers For the just the one right? Yeah, just the second one was them. Yeah, I seen that one. I liked it I mean, especially it's like you said like they just there's a point in the movies. I think where It almost like this is like, you know, we're just having fun. It's like you said I could I could point out in this movie where I think that point was And it was the same moment. I'm like, you know what? I think I actually really like this movie, you know And it was the priest and it was when the priest saw all this crazy shit's going on. And, you know, they're fighting zombies and, you know, crooked man's come in and all this crap. Right. And they're talking about the she the the the what's her name? Joy was a the Bobby Bobby Joe. Bobby Joe Joe Joe is talking about going into the the the tunnels. She's like, yeah, we should go in there and blow it up. And after all this crazy stuff and the priest, all of a sudden just becomes a whole different character. He looks up and he says, lady, I think you're out of your motherfucking mind. I laughed out loud. I was like, I love this movie. And then every line he said from that point on was amazing. It's darker than the devil's asshole. And the look she gives him when he says that. Yeah. She gives him this look like, did you have to say that? Yeah, it's like the humor all of a sudden clicked at that point right in the movie Made sense to me like I almost want to rewatch it again Yeah, I think it took up until that character doing those lines that I was like, okay This is kind of like Evil Dead. This is kind of just going for it. Just having fun with low budget with like You know like realizing that this isn't you know, this grand spectacular Hellboy movie where he's got the horns growing out and he's the end of the world and all that stuff. This is just kind of a goofy but scary sometimes but fun monster of the weak Hellboy. And that made me really dig it, not only as a movie but as a concept. Just having that in the world is kind of what I want Hellboy to be. So this, guess, yeah, go ahead. I was just gonna say, so this, director delivering that version, I think is kind of perfect. Like, yeah, the angles he uses aren't amazing. know, like he uses camera angles that are kind of jarring. There's a lot of like medium shots and there's like, you know, it's the camera work could have been, I think, better thought out at points, you know? But it does have that a lot of that budgetary. because when you do those medium shots, it's like, well, don't show the whole scene because that looks terrible. We can only do some shots where it's the whole place is dressed and ready to go. And the rest of it, you're sure sticking in close. I like the little like interludes that they would do with like the witch ball and like, you know, but they only really did the one like I thought that would after that, it was going to be kind of a thing. Like they're going to have that witch explaining. Kind of they did the bone, but not. Yeah. No, keep calling. Yeah, the lucky bone. But then after that, it was just over. They never came back to it. Which made me feel like they wanted to split it up into a Netflix series. That was my takeaway from this. actually would be kind of cool. So here, say we're keeping it. Okay, this is my point. It really felt like that $20 million budget was a great way to set a precedent to turn the sort world of Hellboy and all these, as you said, John, these characters, which are generally more interesting than he is because he does kind of just, you know, meander through and he's, you know, he's a jobber and these other characters generally tend to be so much more interesting for two or three episodes. So I'm imagining a world where these sort of $200 million that they spent on the first two films now for the foreseeable future is spent on 10 sort of secondary or other more interesting characters like this character, sort of long form episodes because we've done this spectacle. We've done a great spectacle and trying to go there again just seems like a pointless endeavor to me. So yeah, I I agree. I think that's the right direction. And again, you're right. It could be a pitch. It's kind of went straight to streaming so they can say, hey, Netflix, give us six episodes. I will say though, I didn't get the answer. I don't have any experience with the director. I haven't watched any of the movies you mentioned. I don't follow directors really that well, so that helped me go in with no expectations of him. But from what you're describing to me, it sounds like they picked the right guy. Because again, Matt said earlier, Sam Raimi comes to mind. You want that aesthetic again, especially for this story. And I blend genres well. Like you're saying, Dave, when you watch any of their content, it's a little bit of everything sometimes. but it does kind of seem seamless to come together eventually. Yeah. And I will say probably the ship has sailed on a Hellboy streaming series just because we're in the era of clawing back budgets on series at this point. Streamers no longer want 10 to $20 million episodes like they were spending before. barely, I mean, at this point, they don't even really want to spend $1 million on a single episode. So we'll see what the future brings, but probably that heyday where a Hellboy TV show of this caliber could have happened probably behind us. unfortunately, we gotta do movies going forward from this point. Dallas looks like he might disagree. We'll see. mean, we haven't come out in and of itself feels like just an hour and what, 45 minute long episode that they spent $20 million on for cinematic reasons. But to be fair, When I look at the quality of this production, it seems even worse than the quality of production for the, what's the Gale and Herd series, the zombie series? Walking Dead. You know, maybe this is Jim, them just trying to oil the machine so that they can get to a place where they can sort of just get them out the door for a million dollars. Well, we'll see. Either way, think it's- Well, I think for a film, the money doesn't go as far because you're not set up to do like multiple episodes, multiple episodes where you're just like changing out some players, changing out the director episode to episode, but everything else you've already spent the money on, you're just like continuing on from there. Whereas for a movie, like you're spending all that money in one big blowout go. It's like a pilot episode where there is a lot of expenses. This actually feels like a pilot movie for something bigger. maybe the next one, they get 40 million and you know, hopefully they build from there. If anybody can work in that sci-fi made for TV, but still good. It's Hellboy, right? I know we keep saying like we saw the suit bend and stuff, but like he's a man in red paint with his horns sawed off. Hellboy himself sets the precedence as soon as you see him. He is ridiculous, right? They can do anything they want. And so to me that I don't, I sometimes get pulled out of scenes, you know, when, you know, like the Starbucks cup and the, you know, Game of Thrones and stuff like that, that shit will pull you out. But you know, some of the low budget stuff, it's like, you know. I know that a man sat down and wrote this script and he dressed this guy up and read, you know, you kind of know that going in and kind of with Hellboy again, he can eat a little bit of that because he's just so ridiculous. will say the series Happy they did. Yeah, just just Taylor, not the other guy. The first series of that first season of that, think it only went to two or three, two just to the first season was it was the best thing on television for that for that period of time. It really truly was. blended genres and he directed the lion's share of episodes he directed I think seven out of or seven or eight characters blended genre very well yeah kinetic it was interesting they do a great job with I guess that wasn't a low-budget show but for sci-fi it was based on a comic as well yeah mm-hmm it so I feel like there there are like there are properties that are kind of like what this should aim for right like Was it the librarians? You know, like, yeah, she's like series of movies, but they're like low budget movies that are on straight to video. Like, and I think for like Hellboy, could do that for like Shutter or something like somebody can come in and pick it up as like, you know, one or two come out a year. If you could find a way to make it interesting and visually and then. appealing. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of comics. There's a lot of stories. There's a lot of lore. You really don't have to dig deep or get too terribly creative. Because a lot of the stories are not big. In the comics, like it's only you can save it. You know, John said maybe the next one they get 40 million and I'm like, save that for the big finale of some million dollars. Right, stick to your low budget guns. I would hope they can do more with less if they can if you keep making it with like the same cast and they've already created the special effects and the costume and blah blah blah. It's like great. Now kind of like a TV show. Now we can make the next one for like 10 to 15 million with the same quality that we did for 20. And then eventually you're like, and now we're going to bring it all together. This is the season finale. This is that games of throne episode with all the dragons. Right. It's like now we spend all the money and we go out on a bang and give you the big climax and sure save it for that but I hope they don't just try to climb back to 80 to 100 million per movie because that's the issue is like I don't think Hellboy can now now that we've gotten the deltoros and they came and went and everyone got to see that and now we're living in the shadow I'm not sure it can do that much who's the studio behind the the Del Toros. It was Dark Horse Comics that produced it, but what was the studio? don't know. did his other. Yeah, that's probably Lionsgate. OK. Yeah. Yeah. But I think you're right. Maybe they don't. And maybe Mignola, he's not a young man anymore that he wants to make his Hellboy movie. Maybe this is enough for him. You know, we'll see. And it doesn't have to be anything else. And if any movie I know movies don't bring comic readers in, we always talk about that as comic, you know, supporters. If anything can, this can, right? I think they did exactly how you want to see the rest of the story. Come on over to the comics. We'll probably never finish it in film because it's too big in scale, but you could really jump straight from this into where the comics are at at this point in the story and be like, yes, this is amazing. I'll continue this. Well, on the note of comics and on the note of scripts and Mignola and Golden having written the original script. Now, this also has a co-writing credit by the director, Brian Taylor. And this being a US production, which would have been under union guidelines and according to WGA rules for him to get a co-writer credit, that script has to be at least 51 % him in the final end. So we know their script got heavily rewritten by Taylor if it worked out that way or they co-wrote it together, at which point a lot of it was him to begin with. I'm not sure. But a few things that definitely deviate from the comic. So Bobby Joe's song. is a character that does not exist in the Crooked Man comic, right? They created her just for the movie. Personally, I think that was a great idea. can one, I can already see why, because it's like, all the female characters in this are like witches and condemned people. It's like we should probably have one female character that is not just that. And like the witchy sycophants to the Crooked Man and things like that. It's like we need we need someone who's heroic and female here as well. Why don't we why don't we make sure we we put her in there. And I do think it balances out and gives more for the characters to do with each other because then it gives like the priest in her something to do well, hellboy and the other main male character off doing their own thing. And it really balanced that story out in ways that the comic didn't necessarily need to, but the comic was a bit more contained. So there's that difference. And then in the comic story, of course, The climax of the comic essentially is the middle piece of the movie with the shovel, right? And the, where that's kind of, there's a little bit of a denouement in the comic after that with a little bit more that I actually was surprised they didn't put into the movie because the climax we got, I don't know about you guys, but it was my one beef with the movie is the climax was. very anti-climactic to the point where when it was over and then they really did start to just sort of like wrap things up. was like, wait, wait, wait, that's it? That was literally it. That was them defeating the crooked man. I was like, I liked everything even leading up to that. It just seemed kind of random scenes. And then a moment where they beat him and you're just sort of like, and that point, Dave, everyone else's point, Dave, is why. after watching this, thought maybe this is just a cinematic sort of pilot. Maybe this is them testing the water for something that. Yeah, but it's still a movie. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. mean, it's terms of criticism. It's a movie. No, no, no. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. You're I'm not just you're talking about when he they go up the hurricane and they go to his house and then they put Effie in the in the bridal. No, I'm really just like throwing. So without spoiling too much, just the quick sudden use of the witch. yeah. Yeah. And then that was it. Yeah. It's like, And I was like, he's not more powerful than that. Like that was all it literally took. Like, why do we go through any of this? I will say that part is in the comic because I didn't remember a lot of the key points either. So I read it afterwards and. I was surprised how much they stuck to the comic. And maybe you're right. At that point, maybe they should have said, well, we've been pretty loyal. We can clean this up. Because I think what they added, actually, most cinema, right, you go, they added all this stuff. I think you're right. Like adding Bobby Joe, at first, I kind of rolled my eyes. It's like, they're adding a love interest. But there is a Hellboy in love arc, which I think they kind of shoehorned in here, where it's very cute when Hellboy falls for a woman, and he's still kind of an immature guy and doesn't really know what to do. And I like that part of Hellboy. But the ending was, I thought it was faithful to the comic, maybe to a fault, but they go back and he's now in a weakened state. And then again, it's like they finish him off. They added the part of him hallucinating, you know, to allude to some other things. But then the end is with the scene with Effie. That is the end of the comic. So you're right. wasn't the best, but I was kind like, it's nice that they kind of wrapped it up in the same way. So in the comic, so I might one of my favorite things about the Crooked Man story is in the comic. So they beat him at the church. They go to the house, the hurricane. And He's not like the crooked man anymore. He's like, yeah, we can say they didn't show that very well. And he's we can these, you yeah, he's like this gross crab looking thing that's just kind of like, please don't kill me. And then he's just like, no, we're just kills him. Right. well, yeah. And he's not they don't even show him weak. mean, I didn't think they showed him as weakened. Like they show up to his house and it's like booby trapped and like they're having like it's almost like a place of power. And then all of a sudden he shows up and. They just do away and you're just sort of like, wait, you were winning essentially right there. Like, why did you even show up if you're this cinematic? It was a little they didn't have the budget to show them as a blob of insects. So yeah, I get it. Like they were supposed to be like, you're right. It wasn't it wasn't the best. I mean, the crooked man really was Mike Mignola saying Richard Carbandra, whatever you want. I've always felt like that. He was like, I'll do whatever you want. So I've always felt like he had a heavy hand in it. So maybe this probably trying to stay as faithful to that. But you're right, it wasn't the best ending. But again, for me, was like, that's cool, because you don't get that from other movies and genres. Hellboy is just so weird. And that was a very weird ending. I do get that. And I do think I agree with you in theory in that sometimes anti-Climaxes can be beautifully done. In that way where you're expecting something, it subverts that expectation, and it does it in beautiful way. I just don't think this is one of them. So this is definitely wasn't satisfying ending for me. not a satisfying ending. But I felt like it was again only because, you know, I'm a homer for it. So was like, yeah, I like this. I do think it was a good delivery of the Hellboy, all right, time to clock out of my day. Kind of like, well, that's it for you. know, like, right. That's the of workday. Five o'clock is hit. He's And so many of the comics, like they end with like they kind of figure it out. Now, this one, at least they eluded to the witch ball. Some of them, it's just like they figure out this very magical way to, do this. Because it's like, we only got 12 pages, wrap up the story. Which again, I like because that feels like a comic come to life to be. Well, and they did the whole witch ball thing earlier in the movie where they're breaking down everything that the witch ball is and how to make it. And that exists in the comic too in this insane panel, which has 250 words in this one giant panel. And they explain the whole thing of the witch ball. So there are a lot of tit for tat between the comic and the movie. But there was something where it works in the comic and something about the way they rejiggered it here, where it just as an ending, it fell, it was rushed and felt very flat for me. That is not to say, I mean, like I said, this is still like the second best Hellboy and I still had to go rewatch the first one to make sure even of that. So this is still a strong showing, I think, for this new direction of Hellboy. But it's got it's got some flaws. Yeah, the ending was almost like an epilogue. You know what mean? Like the big battle with the church. which works in a comic and not necessarily in Unless you're setting up a series of films that will do this and stay native and faithful to some of the other arts. that will give Hellboy his own feel. That will give him his own uniqueness. No, still got to disagree with that. I'll tell you another reason. If it's a pilot and the next episode drops next week, sure. But not like it cinematic pilot. This is the new thing I'm coining right here. This is a new streaming. This is actually the first three episodes. Well, as a cinematic pilot, it's a bad idea and doesn't It's cinematic pilot. It's coming. It's coming. Just real quick. They shot in, what was it, Bulgaria, I think, and their production window was late March to early May. So about five or six weeks. So they're in and out, which you know, you can tell based on this film, of course. Yeah, but again, that's another feather in the cap of the idea notion that it is going to be a cinematic pilot series. And that is my Ted talk. Thank you come again. I could see that because again, I think sometimes they get bogged down too much and all that stuff. Like you said, sometimes you just get to a point and you're like, this is a movie about a big red guy. Let's just throw it on the screen and see if people like it. know, so I kind of like it. But again, that budget, I don't know they're going to be to probably not. It's all experimental. they're trying to I would. That was your streamers are trying to figure out what the hell to do with their content. mean, this film alone, what was it?$20 million budget was supposed to get a cinematic at the actual release. And all of a sudden it's on the stream or like a pilot. I mean, you guys follow film more than me. Is that rare for a movie to get all these foreign market releases and not a US release? Totally common. Very common now. Yeah, for sure. Very common now. Yeah. I mean, we were talking to Rylan Grant, the episode just dropped today. Everyone go listen to it on Haunted Heart. And he was saying how, you know, the Wolf's movie with George Clooney and Brad Pitt, like, it was a shock to the actors that that did not go theatrical. That was not the plan. Same thing with the Amazon Roadhouse remake with Jake Gyllenhaal, 11th Hour. not theatrical, dumping on streaming. These things are happening more and more as we go. They just don't always announce it. Or they announce it as like, this drops on Amazon at this time, but no one knew the thing was coming until they announced that. So I think with Hellboy, they were holding out for theatrical and then they weren't able to get, because theaters have to actually accept you into that window with whatever else is also coming out. And it needs to be something that makes sense to you. What is the deal to get this window at this time of year and to get X-mini screens? And can you recoup all the costs you're going to be spending on marketing and how much the theaters are going to take on opening weekend, which is more than 50 % on opening weekend. Let me tell you, it only drops down after opening weekend. So it's... And I also think upon review, they realize that this film would have been laughed out of theaters in the first week. Yeah. Maybe. That might have made it worse for streaming and everything. Yeah, that's a bummer. Yeah, because it wouldn't look as good on the big screen just because of the lower budget. And the comedy is in. Whereas on the small screen, it yeah, I think it coheres a little bit better. Yeah. All right, guys. Well, we are at the end of our show where we are going to reveal what we're all going to drink while watching Hellboy the Crooked Man or did drink while watching Hellboy the Crooked Man, because we pretty much all watched it yesterday, as far as I know, or the day before. So let's start, John, just in case you have to do you have to bail because I know you have an out. Let's start with you. What did you drink while watching Hellboy the Crooked Man? Well, I did. I did. I did watch it during the day, so I did not drink. I know that doesn't recruit a lot of people from drinking, but for myself, I our audience. But this this may be a little bit snobby, but if I was to drink with it, from what I understand, you can't see if you're watching. yeah. If you're watching, look at this guy. Look at this guy. did not watch it. if I, wow. If I were seeing a Hellboy bottle for all the listeners, because remember, John, no visuals. That's what I was trying to get to. I know you can't see it at home. So I'm holding up Hellboy Hellwater, cinnamon whiskey. Yeah. This is what I would watch when I watched the 2019 one. I will get another bottle of this. It is horrible. Can you get that? I'm going to some cinnamon whiskey. This is basically bad fireball and fireball is already bad. So if I watch this 2019, even though Matt has said nice things, if you want to watch it, I would probably bust this out. So no, I would not drink that with Hellboy. What I would drink is this amazing beer set, which you also can't Yeah, so I have those, but I can't find them anymore because they were Hellboy beer set. The Hellboy beer set, which I do have a couple that left that I was holding a buddy of mine who's a huge Hellboy fan. We plan to watch the movie together soon. We're gonna bust out the rest of them for that. think I have the Hellboy one is maple syrup beer, and then there's a spicy one that's the Liz one. And I can't remember the sixth one, but I've been waiting a long time. We drank this first bottles in celebration of a comic we made together. And now with this great Hellboy movie that I know he and I are gonna love together. That's what I would pair it with. I feel bad for other people. It was very hard to get. It was such a pain in the ass and you can't get it anymore. I hope they do it again. the Dark Horse and Hellboy community do a pretty good job with their there are Walking Dead Wines still, also terrible. I just know that going in. But they exist as sort of adjacent to we mentioned Walking Dead earlier. And I was like, yeah, which does have that, what do they call that altered reality, the thing where you get an app and then you put it on the label and the label comes to life and starts to move and all that fun stuff. AR, yeah. reality. Augmented reality. Thank you. Thank you. I say, Johan is my favorite character in the book, maybe coincidentally, but the Citrus Whit Johan Krauss was probably the best, so I don't know if the new... I'll check back in and if the other three top that one, but I remember that one being the best by far. Yeah, this one not having major studio backing, probably there won't be a lot of merchandising on this Hellboy, which is the downside of it being a low budget relatively. Well, the good thing is that Mignola... like has a lot of control over all his stuff. So he hoards himself out to everything anyway. there's always Hellboy merchandise. You don't have to worry about the movie. Although the Hellboy merchandise is they can do comic. They can't do any of the movie images. Right. Right. And the same thing. So I know Walking Dead. Robert Kirkman is the same way like he can merchandise the comic images, but he does not have the rights to any of the TV characters. By the way, Gail Ann Heard follows me on Twitter now. She followed him. Well, I was like, wait, what? Anyway, go on. All right. So, Matt, how about for you? What are you drinking with this? So I was trying to get those beers because I had about like when they first came out, like, what? Twenty nineteen, probably right for the last movie. I couldn't find him even though. So I live in Portland where Dark Horse and Roe Gale is and nobody had him. So I tried to get the next best thing which is this 19 crimes. It's one of these augmented. Frankenstein 19 crimes Frankenstein wine that was cheap. It was right there at the grill. It's great label. Very fun label. Yeah, they do have great labels. I saw those I thought about them. I'm like, I can't I can't bring myself I'm I can't do 19 crimes, but I saw that I think that Frankenstein one is what 1099 where I am. Yeah I mean, I'm not a wine drinker, you know, like, but I was like, it's got Frankenstein on it. So I was like, all right, Dallas, what are you doing, OK, all right. So I went with I'm a glutton for punishment sometimes. the first 15 minutes of this film, I actually decided what I was going to drink. And the reason I well, I just took the second 15 minutes, so like 30 minutes. And I was like, OK, no, I want this. Was something that's drinkable but not much else going on it's a little passive and unfocused my taste Jammy but not good. Jammy. It's kind of like Dave knows I'm talking about It's a medium finish It just was mmm, it was wine technically just like this film was sort of Hellboy film, technically. So I went with the Josh Sellers Cabernet song from 2019. mean, look, budget wines for a budget movie. Honestly, that was my thinking. was like, you know what? I'm down here. I just got punched in the face. I might as well kick myself in the nuts too. We're here. But to say I say that just to make this a swamer event, ala Matt, I actually enjoy the film on its own, just not in comparison to the others. Gotcha. Gotcha. All right. Well, I went all out and I decided to pair this. So watching this sort of folk horror tinged Hellboy, it really got me thinking about like what other kind of folk horror that I love and what places a wine can come from that are very like has folklore and folk horror associated with it. And I went for a wine from the island of Corsica. So Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean right off the coast of France. It is one of the 18 regions of France, even though it is in the Mediterranean. And I got a 2020 Yves Le Chia e Crochet Patrimonia Rouge, which so I'll tell you why. The Corsican, I've been fascinated by Corsican folklore and folklore for a long time, because I have this book. And I'll mention the book here in just a minute. Let me finish talking about the wine though. it is, so one of the icons of Corsica's patrimonia region, the winemaker is Yves Lechia. He followed in the footsteps of his dad and grandfather working for the family estate. In 2004, he left that domain, created his own property alongside his wife Sandrine, whose family are winemakers in Alsace. to focus on a single to war he felt was the top in patrimonio, which is the to war of E crochet crochet crochet. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. It's the letter E space C R O C E. So like crocodile, but E with an E E Crocet. It sits on thin chalk soil above a thick bedrock of pure schist. Yves is a firm believer in the idea that if you want to do something right, you do it yourself. So this is a theme with me lately, Dallas. He tends to his vines alone and his own cellar alone. He's another single out to our winemaker that gets no help from anyone, which isn't entirely true because in the same breath, his wife, Sandrine, does help during harvest time. Yet another guy. So she will in as Exactly, exactly. So you got a shoehorn in the new character, right? In the story. Like he wrote the script and he's like, it's just me. And then the writer's like, no, no, no, no, no. We got to put a woman in there too. Come on, come on. But she actually is always there. But he and his wife are like a two person show and no one else assists them in this very small plot. But it is here in the States. You can find it. found it. Again, K &L wines is one of the places where can find a lot of wines online. You can search this online. I'll have a link down below. Yep. He is also, he's known for winemaking. He's also celebrated for being the founding member of Feletta, the letter A, space, F-I-L-E-T-T-A, a legendary and proudly nationalistic Corsican polyphonic singing group, which you can find on Spotify. I found them. I listened to some of the music. And his family name Lechia is Corsican for oak. But the name is very ironic because he never uses any oak with his wine. In fact, he's never even allowed wood into his cellar. So this E. crochet rouge is a blend of 90 % of a grape to Corsica called Neluciu, N-I-E-L-L-U-C-C-I-U. That will be spelled down below in the description. Trust me, don't try, But 90 % Neluciu. local indigenous grape likely related to San Giovese, which I can totally see because this has a little bit of a Chianti flavor to it here and 10 % Grenache. Now this is I chose this wine, I think it matches Hellboy. It's got a definite a definite depth to it. It's a red, it's strong, but it's also got a tartness and a sourness to it. So it's fruity, but fruit tarty. It's got it's not too high in acidity, but it's got some acidity in there. So it's got a little bit of a bite. And the fruitiness and that tartness and sourness and that little bite of acidity, it just, matches this sort of slower, but still with some action set pieces. Like it's got this horror of like a place in the countryside that has soured with this sort of infestation of like witches and the crooked man and selling your soul and all this bad behavior. And everyone's trying to get out it and it's like, this is what the land is. is it's like, it's got a bite, it's got a sour note to it. It really matched what was going on in this movie for me. one of the reasons Corsica really came to mind while I was watching this is I had this book for a long, time. It's this very small, like 100 page book that is a nonfiction book about a Corsican myth called The Dream Hunters. And The Dream Hunters are really unknown outside of Corsica. If you don't live there, you've never heard of this. And this one little thin 100 page book is the only time I've ever even heard heard of them. They're called the Missouri there and they at night, they go hunting or dream that they go hunting to kill an animal with whom they recognize a human face with a pawn or within the next day they wake up and announced that that person they saw in that animal they killed in the dream is going to die within the year. And this is this is the so the Missouri are something that apparently way back in the day they actually existed and they would announce your death. That's Hellboy story. And there are the Signori. And the Signori are people that they are life givers. They practice the folk medicine. They practice the, you know, and then they can free you from the curse of the quote unquote evil eye, which is when I believe the evil eyes when the Missouri have marked you for death and you can. it's Missouri versus the Signatori. And they are constantly at war over who dies and who lives on the island of Corsica. And I've always. through dream hunting and I fucking love that myth. And so it's always been one that stuck with me when I was watching this movie, I was like, I don't, actually don't know much about Appalachia, even though I'm American. So I was like, you know what, this popped into mind and it's a wine making country. And I was like, this, think I got to go with this for a folk horror. Well, that sounds like it would make an excellent installment for a following episode of a cinematic series based on the cinematic pilot that was. yeah, he had to sneak that one back in there. I love how thoughtful you are about your stuff. Just drink whiskey, Dave. That's what... Yeah, Dave, I don't know if you saw this. Mine's got a picture of Frankenstein on it. But no, on all seriousness, Hellboy wouldn't care. Hellboy would probably prefer the Frankenstein bottle. Drink whatever you want. Hellboy says drink what you want as long as you drink it with skeletons. That's right. There you go. Beautiful. All right, folks, thank you so much for listening. Once again, this has been... Who have our guest been? Matt Harding and John, what's your last name, John? That's right. You really are John W in my brain, by the way. I saw John W and I blanked and I was like, wait, wait, what the fuck? John Westoff and Matt Harding. John, where can people follow you online if they want to follow you? I am part time comics. That's comics with an X at the end. If you search that and anything, leads you to our link tree, our store on VR, Instagram. anywhere you search part-time comics with an X. comics with three X's if you want to find them at night. Hey, no, not if you want to find the other, John. Although now that are you guys should find them. And Matt, Matt Harding, where can people find you online if they'd like to follow you? Just www.matthardingart or you can follow me, Matt Harding Art on Instagram or Twitter or whatever. Cool. Beautiful. we will have clickable links down below in the description for both of those for both these guys. And once again, folks, this has been wine and we will be back next week for another wine and entertainment pairing for your entertainment. We will check you then. Happy October spooktober until next week. guys. Ciao for now. you you