Hellboy, as a concept, shouldn't work as well as it did in 2004. (Well, we saw what rebooting it in 2019 did....)

Mike Mignola's comic blends folklore, mythology, the paranormal and Lovecraftian horror, and needed a director who could take all that and make it visually appealing, and coherent to the layman. It also needed a lead actor who could portray the strength, vulnerability and humour needed for a main character who would put off the most conservative of viewer just by being a big red demon with the word 'hell' his name.

The winning combination of Guillermo del Toro's direction and Ron Perlman headlining made Hellboy from what could have been a dull, lifeless mess to a rich, funny, heartwarming, visually stunning story of a comic book hero that came years before the MCU made superheroes the norm.

Ron Perlman simply is Hellboy. He will always be Hellboy. Sorry David Harbour, but it's true.

With a cast rounded out by the master of bodily expression Doug Jones, a subdued but intense Selma Blair and the always wonderful late John Hurt, Hellboy really stands out as something special against the X-Men and Spider-Man movies of the same era.

This episode also includes a virtual interview with the co-writer of the screen story, Peter Briggs, who very kindly took some time out to answer some questions I sent him and recorded his responses. He can be found on Twitter @ThePeterBriggs. This is only the second interview he has ever done on Hellboy, so I'm delighted he was able to feature on this episode! The first interview is available https://www.dvdtalk.com/interviews/the_project_fro.html (here) and is an interesting read!

Next week we conclude this double feature with Hellboy II: The Golden Army!

I would love to hear your thoughts on Hellboy! You can get in touch on
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My website is at https://verbaldiorama.com/ (https://verbaldiorama.com)

Thanks to the following for their contributions to this episode:

Massive thank you to the wonderful Peter Briggs, co-writer of Hellboy (2004) @ThePeterBriggs for being involved in this episode.

Twitter peeps
Andy @geeksaladradio
@cinema_recall
@Stuntgoat75
@realhuntermmm
@schoolofmovies, who also have a Hellboy episode, and it's phenomenal. I highly recommend you check it out!
@BLCAgnew

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