Father Malone's Weekly Roundup - Hellboy: The Crooked Man, Drag Me to Hell, Straight to Hell

I think of American werewolf in London. That is a creature from beyond. Like you, baby, and speaking of creatures from Hell, I'm going first, Sorry you Snoss and lost Dog. My expectations, my expectations for my choice this week were beyond. In the basement, they were subterranean. You know that hole in your heart that goes all the way to China, the one you can't see the bottom, but believe me, it's a long way down. Well, that's where my expectations

were hovering. This is the third incarnation of this comic book. I want to call him a newbie character because I assume I'm still in my twenties. But since he debuted around the same time as Harley Quinn and people will assume she's been around since the Golden Age of comics, I guess he's now a classic and as such, deserves multiple interpretations. It's just that the first two interpretations were

just okay. In fact, they were diminishing returns. And I think when we all got a look of the out of context still from this movie a couple of months ago, I figured, well, this should be the equivalent of crow Salvation or Scorpion King four. How fucking wrong I was. Here's hell boy, a crooked man.

on the Marvel radar Mike Mignola. So you can bet I was there opening day when one of the most promising new directors decided to adapt mister Mgnola's most popular character into a feature and a big budget, splashy studio film to boot, with the perfect actor for the role. Weirdly, the very first comic con I attended was back in nineteen ninety three. That is where hell Boy made his debut in Comic Con Comics number two. You can bet I devoured Seed of Destruction and Wolves of Saint August

and the Corpse with the Iron Shoes. Oh Man, Wake the Devil, y'all. Okay, here's the thing. I love that first film because it looks so goddamned good and the performances are great, and the villain's got menaced to them. But that's all I love about it. Hell Boy, like Blade two, ended up being an action movie with a virtually no horror, definitely no scares, and that's what I

loved about those books. What we got in the film was a weirdo men in Black clone, an action movie with some supernatural touches, and who was that new hire who was supposed to be the audience proxy. I'm sorry. If you loved the movie, I get it, particularly if that was the only exposure you had to this character.

Golden Army is a sequel that doubled down on the beautiful that The designs and locales and even characters are better in almost every way except it falls into the previous film's trap with the marvel Big Light in the sky as the villain that must be stopped third act. So I might have been the only one who was stoked to hear that Neil Marshall and David Harbor were rebooting the series the promise of a more intimate story

in the director of the Descent and Hard Home. That was the episode of Game of Thrones with all the fucking zombies. You remember it? What could go wrong here?

I know you watched it. You watched it obsessively. It was on USA Network a few years ago. A breaking bad type crime saga set in Florida and centered around a Nail Salon. The lead character was played by Nissi Nash, and she had an on again, off again relationship with a muscly dufust gangster named Roller. I want to say he was the best part of the show, but there were so many fucking great actors on it that that wouldn't be fair, So I'm just gonna say he stood out.

That's Jack Keasey. He was great there, He's perfect here. I love Ron Perlman, and I think that character makeup looked remarkably like mcnola's original designs. But mcnola's designs look great on paper and weird in the real world. The Harbor makeup was awful. It made Hellboy look like some douche who insisted on going to the club despite his obvious mishap with the tanning bed. I think the design on this Hellboy is spectacular. It looks real world enough

and cartoon enough while still being believable. He's walking around in full daylight, and it never feels like a mask. It looks like a real skin. It looks like that guy's face, and gone are the wise cracks, Gone is the bro behavior. I just love pizza and beer and hanging out with my buds and goon and over, Liz. The Hellboy in the books is more Harry Callahan than

John McClain. That's the version we're getting in this story, which is a strip down one off, like a Great one issue or a run of issues of a Hellboy comic. It takes place in nineteen fifty nine in the Appalachian Wilderness. And get this, it's a horror movie. This one's designed to scare first and have action and jokes and banter a far distant I don't even know if it's second. It's more like a roving right field. The creep factor

just keeps rising throughout. It's a hell of a reminder that intimate stories were just as well as those involving the end of the world. Here a farmer is fighting for his soul against an ancient evil that's been terrorizing the denizens of his local community for decades. This crooked man is a fearsome opponent. He actually rivals Reverend Kane from Poltergeist too as far as elderly terror goes, and he's ably assisted by Leah McNamara as this Southern she devil.

In a slip I might be going light on the movie because it's so evocative of the original comics. Actually, yes, I'm being very easy on it. Even though this is a scaled down film, it ends up kind of overreaching given its budget. It does feel like the pilot of a television series at the beginning, or maybe the finale that the network pumped a lot of money into the effects. Particularly at the beginning, Foretel a bad time for all.

But once it settles down and the story kicks in, I didn't notice any of the limits tas the action isn't John Wick levels either. But this isn't an action movie. It's a horror movie based on a horror comic book. All right, I'll stop being a snob now. The Hunt the hell Boy, the Criocked Man is available on vod and yes you should buy it. We could do worse than have a continuing series of films or TV movies or whatever the fuck, just as long as they keep doing it in this tone with this hell boy. All

dogs love Ron Perlman. It's because of beauty and the beast. I bet it has to be a confusing sensation. He's clearly a cat, but he's so damn sexy. Hey, do not involve me with your fantasy life.

back were causing a ruckus. Both of the parents turned to deal with them, and as they do I realized it's Sam Raimi, and for what must have been a split second but felt like a fucking eternity, I found myself staring and unable to break away as all of my favorite horror movies were playing in front of mine.

My eyes and my brain was screaming, Hey, it's Sam Raimie while a lone voice struggled to be heard over the din of film fanatic chatter, which was saying that man and woman are just trying to deal with their kids as they go about their lives, and you're frozen in the middle of a crosswalk and you look like a fucking psychopath. So I was mercifully able to continue on before they noticed my lunatic glare. Anyway, leave it to Sam Raimi to bring gypsy curses into the twenty

first century. Doesn't work on paper, shouldn't work at all. It does with his camera. Missus Ganosh is one of the most fearsome horror villains I've ever seen. How a nun became an instant icon and not Missus Ganosh's handkerchief is a crime. Again, I'm being totally serious. Any doubt if Ramy still had it as a horror maestro after years of Spider Man films can be answered definitively with this flick. He makes a handkerchief a source of terror.

every fucking thing she does. She is worth her weight in gold and does great work in supporting or lead with seeming effortlessness, and this movie is fortunate to have her. People call this film a throwback, and it is in a lot of ways, starting with that classic sixties universal logo at the beginning beautiful and it's the simplest tale. Girl crosses the wrong witch and is cursed to be taken to hell by a demon unless she can exercise the demon or pass the curse on to someone else.

Threadbars a good description of that plot, but Raymie, with his brother Ivan assisting on script duties, layers in so much excellent careization, in so much observed behavior. Loman's character, Christine is a bank loan officer who, against her own moral judgment, effectively forecloses on an ancient woman's home for no other reason than to prove to her boss that

she's worthy of advancement. This was during the housing collapse at the end of the decade, and it felt irrelevant rather than exploitative, and it didn't make us hate her character.

That's why the film is fortunate to have Loman, because what easily could have been ninety minutes of sick thrill watching a terrible person get what they deserve, we get a human being who made a bad choice and regrets it before the supernatural intrigue begins, and we want her to try every avenue to write that wrong and we feel absolutely every defeat because of her performance. Also, missus

Ganosh is horrifying alive or dead and undead. But the Lamia, who boy, I rarely have nightmares after a Frank flick, But the Lamia likes to possess other living things. One of those incarnations I can see when I close my eyes. Goddamn you, Sam ray Me, You know what This film is a throwback to when a horror filmmaker wasn't interested in a fucking franchise. He just wanted to tell a good story with good characters designed to put the screws on you and scare you so badly you turn on

the lights after you finish watching it. Give me all the throwbacks I mentioned justin long but Lorna Raver as missus Ganush deserves equal mention, as does Delip Rao as a psychic who tries to help get the Lamia off of Christine's back. But the special MVP is Adrian Baratza as Sean Sandina, a character who's dealt with the Lamia before and has returned to deal with it again. She's rock solid. You would want her running any seance you were involved in. Drag me to hell, not going to

say another thing about it. In case you've yet to feast your eyes feast mm shoefly pie delicious? Why would we have shoefly pie? You know I've got that gluten thing. That's why you get the bun anytime I get a hamburger. Fuck that lettuce? Rap shit, you got another in your young ripley some more in the tank for one more pick. Since we've had two hell films, let's try fecta this motherfucker. I'll actually make this brief while I wholeheartedly recommend the film.

I am certain that ninety percent of you are going to hate it. So what do you do if you've managed to make two films in a row that are absolute perfect documents of punk rock, an absurdist comedy and a musical biopic. Make a punk spaghetti western? Of course,

this is straight to hell?

began shouting about America's latest beverage obsession. Alex Cox made every character in this film an absolute fiend for Java. Those cowboys are mainly played by Irish punk folk geniuses the Pogues. It was during the making of this film in the Spanish desert of al Maria, that Shane McGowan wrote the songs that would make up the fucking masterpiece that is, if I should fall from grace with God here you'll probably recognize it from a Minivan commercial.

weirdness for its own sake, but I don't care. I love the mood here, I love the weird mashup of genres, and I love everyone on camera and behind the camera. Alex Conx would never be as playful again as he is here. Walker isn't exactly a laugh riot. I mean the very conceit of it. Yeah, but we're not exactly giggling during the invasion of Nicaragua. Plus, this movie has Grace Jones. She's in it for one scene and maybe has one line, but goddamn Grace Jones is always worth

the price of admission. That's the wisdom. I'm leaving you with young Ripley and all of you at home. You're not perfect, but you're perfect for me. Oh Ripley has a copy of Inside Story Watch Out, everybody, actually watch in what I don't know. Thank you midnight viewers once again for rounding up the week with Ripley and myself. If you want episodes early or want to support our insane mission of twice a week entertainment for you, you can

go to patreon dot com slash fatherm alone. Though, really, just giving us five stars on whatever app you're listening to us on would benefit us immensely, as would subscribing and liking and sharing and all the social media who ha. We'll leave you with a line from the lambia and other l words.