What fresh hell is this?
After a ten-year absence from the silver screen, Hellboy made his return in a gory two-hour
reboot of the franchise.
Amid all the crushed skulls,the film leaves several loose ends in its wake, so let's try
making some sense of that unruly ending.
Spoilers ahead!
Hellboy's titular half-man, half-hellbeast
is portrayed by Stranger Things' David Harbour, who fills the formidable shoes of Ron Perlman,
the actor who starred in Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy films.
The film grabs imagery from the original comic book series by Mike Mignola, cribbing plot
points and characters from The Wild Hunt, among several others.
Hellboy works for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, battling supernatural
creepos alongside his adoptive father, Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, played by Deadwood's Ian
McShane.
Throughout the film, Hellboy is hot on the trail of a spiteful witch named Nimue the
Blood Queen, portrayed by Milla Jovovich.
In the flashback sequence that opens the film, Nimue is chopped to bits by none other than
King Arthur, who rips her apart with his mighty sword Excalibur.
Nimue's body parts are scattered throughout the land and remain buried for 1,500 years.
Alas, she's eventually pieced back together by her willing supplicant, the humanoid warthog
Gruagach.
Now, Hellboy must stop Nimue before she destroys humanity.
Beneath all the rotting flesh and gouged eyeballs,
this is the story of a creature searching for his place in the world.
If we were to boil down the character's central dilemma, we'd say he vacillates between sympathizing
with the supernatural world and siding with humans.
As the film lunges toward its conclusion, we learn that Hellboy is the spawn of a demon
and a witch of Arthurian descent.
In the final confrontation, Nimue the Blood Queen temporarily seduces Hellboy to the dark
side after killing Professor Bruttenholm before his eyes.
Hellboy is garlanded in a kicky crown of hell-flame and immediately grows his horns out, because
he's evil now.
As Nimue's squadron of unearthly creatures rip through the terrified London streets,
Hellboy ultimately comes to his senses and overpowers Nimue.
He decapitates her with Excalibur, sending her still-screaming head back into the fiery
fathoms of hell.
In the film's final set piece, Hellboy finds himself on a dangerous mission in Siberia
with two trusty cohorts from the BPRD: scrappy spirit medium Alice Monaghan, played by Sasha
Lane, and moody Ben Daimio, played by Daniel Dae Kim.
Ben is a downlow were-jaguar whose theoretically British accent also has a penchant for shapeshifting.
After dispatching the members of a secret cabal called the Atlantis Society, the trio
notice a large fish tank.
Suddenly, webbed fingers poke out from the murky water and touch the glass surface.
If you've ever read the comics or seen the Guillermo del Toro films, the name Abe Sapien
will surely mean something to you: Although he may be half-man and half-amphibian, the
character is entirely badass.
Portrayed by Doug Jones in del Toro's films, Abe Sapien was once a man named Langdon Everett
who dabbled in the occult and paid the ultimate price: He became a half-man and half-amphibian
monstrosity.
Those are Abe's webbed fingers, clearly clamouring for a sequel.
"Remind me of why I keep doing this."
Hellboy's ghostly rendezvous Hellboy throws not one but two scenes into
the end credits.
In the mid-credits scene, we find Hellboy mourning the recent death of Professor Trevor
Bruttenholm.
Suddenly the specter of a certain Lobster Johnson appears, portrayed by actor Thomas
Haden Church.
The ghostly figure wastes no time telling Hellboy: "Evil... it is coming."
Johnson also appears in an earlier flashback, making mincemeat out of a slew of Nazi occultists.
So who is this guy?
Long story short, he's a beloved character in the Hellboy universe; a vigilante who plays
by his own rules.
"Aah!"
"Guten tag!"
"I love you, Lobster Johnson!"
As you just saw, Johnson is fond of searing his signature "lobster claw" symbol into the
foreheads of his enemies.
What's not to like about that?
During his quest to find Nimue the Blood Queen,
Hellboy pays a visit to Baba Yaga, a haggard witch who exists in some far-off dimension.
Baba Yaga offers Hellboy some clues regarding Nimue's whereabouts, but this intel comes
at a price: He must give her one of his eyeballs.
He agrees, but manages to escape Baba Yaga with both eyeballs intact.
But in a post-credits scene, Baba Yaga convinces an unseen accomplice to murder Hellboy at
his earliest convenience and hand over the hellish eye she was promised.The Los Angeles
Times seems to think she's talking to Koschei the Deathless, a seemingly "immortal" assassin
who appears in the Darkness Falls graphic novel.
This theory gels with the fact that Baba Yaga assures her henchman she'll mercifully end
his life if he brings her Hellboy's eye.
After surviving a movie full of so much sensory overload, you may be willing to volunteer
both of your own.
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