Midnight Horror Review: Hellboy (2019)

This is a sponsored review. All opinions are 100% mine.

I'm the only person in the world who believes Dark Horse's Hellboy is cursed! There have been three film adaptations - Hellboy (2004), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), and Hellboy (2019) - and all of them have more or less flopped at the box office.

Why is this?

I have absolutely no clue! There are many die hard fans for both Mike Mignola's comics and Guillermo del Toro's films.

Hellboy's reboot/remake was released to theatres back in April with Neil Marshall in the director's chair and David Harbour taking over the half-demon. The film was executed by the mainstream critics and bombed at the box office. Plus, Avengers: Endgame coming out a few weeks later didn't help much either.

Lionsgate Home Entertainment is releasing Hellboy (R; 121 minutes) on 4K Ultra HD ($42.99), Blu-ray ($39.99), DVD ($29.99), and Digital HD on July 23rd. The film borrows bits and pieces from the comic books Darkness Calls, The Wild Hunt, The Storm and the Fury, and Hellboy in Mexico. It ignores the del Toro's movies and gives Hellboy a new origin tale.

The reboot begins with the half-demon Hellboy being sent to the English countryside to track and kill a trio of giants. However, things aren't exactly how they appear, resulting in Hellboy barely making it out alive. He quickly learns that the thought-to-be-dead sorceress"Blood Queen" Nimue (played by Milla Jovovich) has been brought back to life, piece by piece. Along side an Irish medium, Alice Monaghan (played by Sasha Lane), and a B.P.R.D. soldier, Ben Daimio (played by Daniel Dae Kim), Hellboy is hell-bent on stopping Nimue and her army of demons from destroying the world.

Special Features include:

4KUHD, Blu-ray & DVD:

Deleted Scenes
Previsualizations

Blu-ray Exclusive:

Tales of the Wild Hunt: Hellboy Reborn (3-Part Documentary)

Final Thoughts

Like many others, I'm sick and tired of all the unwanted remakes that Hollywood keeps churning out one after another. I enjoyed Ron Perlman's version of Hellboy in the del Toro's films, so I wasn't exactly excited about this year's reboot. Is it too difficult for the filmmaker's to give it a soft-reboot but keep it in continuity with the previous movies?

Anyway, I'm a fan of David Harbour from Netflix's Stranger Things, so I was a little curious about how he would portray Hellboy. After watching the film on Blu-ray, I was surprised I didn't hate it. To tell you the truth, I loved it. Don't get me wrong, the Guillermo del Toro's films are superior, but the reboot is much better than what the critics made it out to be.

David Harbour does a great a job as Hellboy. The makeup for the character is amazing. The only thing I didn't like was the "Right Arm of Doom" looked more like a glove and less like a stone arm.

Milla Jovovich gives a good performance as the film's villain. And, as always, Ian McShane is a scene stealer, which in this flick he's playing Hellboy's adoptive father, Trevor Bruttenholm.

This is a R-rated film filled with bloody and gory violence with plenty of profanity. If you've ever read the comic books, then it'll be no surprise to you about the film's dark tone.

The picture and sound qualities are topnotch on the Blu-ray. It would have been nice if there was a commentary from the director and the cast, but considering the reported production issues, I can completely understand why none was included.

Overall, Hellboy is an underrated superhero horror flick that deserves to find a new life on Blu-ray and DVD!