Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad

Promotional posters for Hellboy: The Crooked Man, Nosferatu, and Time Bandits

The über-geek in me is really looking forward to the upcoming Nosferatu and Hellboy: The Crooked Man movies scheduled to be released later this year. Considering how bad the movie industry has been the past decade or so I should be more cynical, but the trailers for these two films look pretty promising. By contrast, I am much less excited for Apple TV’s adaptation of Time Bandits. I suppose it was too much to expect a trifecta.

Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024)

Hellboy: The Crooked Man #1,
Dark Horse Comics, 2008

“Dark things call to dark things.” ~ Anung Un Rama (Jack Kesy), Hellboy: The Crooked Man

A big fan of retro sci-fi/steampunk (Heavy Metal), [1] sword & sorcery (Savage Sword of Conan), and horror (Eerie, Creepy, and Vampirella) comics, I did not read Mike Mignola’s Hellboy in the 90s. A little too old, by then I was way more into books, music, and girls, and drifting away from graphic novels. While I did enjoy the first two live-action films starring Ron Perlman, [2] I did not care for the 2019 Hellboy reboot with David Harbour.

Doing a little research, the story is supposed to take place in the desolate backwoods of Appalachia in the 1950s. [3] That alone is the stuff nightmares are made of. Similar to the way Jaws (1975) ruined the ocean for me, the rapey hillbillies in Deliverance (1972) have me almost as terrified of the American hinterlands as I am of Gotham’s crime-ridden subway system.

Without giving too much away, our cambion (half-demon) protagonist battles a coven of witches and the “Crooked Man,” an executed 18th-century war profiteer named Jeremiah Witkins who has returned from Hell and haunts the remote wilds of Virginia. [4] I have no idea how true to the lore the Crooked Man movie will be, but I like the dark and spooky ambiance of the trailer. Reportedly absolutely no CGI was used on Hellboy or the Crooked Man. Using only practical effects, this gives it more of an old-fashioned horror movie vibe than a superhero flick.

Jack Kesy is convincing as the corneous-shorn hell-spawn

Watch Trailer

Nosferatu (2024)

“He is coming” ~ Just about everybody in the trailer

Even more excited for Robert Eggers Nosferatu, I have always been fascinated by vampires. As a kid, who didn’t love playing with plastic fangs on Halloween and repeating the famous line—wrongly attributed to Bela Lugosi in Dracula (1931)—“I vant to suck your blood,” in your best Transylvanian accent? Later enticing my overactive adolescent imagination, I relished, among others, the erotic vampiric depictions of Manuel Sanjulián, José González, and Frank Frazetta, especially those of the voluptuous blood-sucking temptress Vampirella.

A remake of F.W. Murnau's 1922 German silent film Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens (Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horrors), the forthcoming film stars Bill Skarsgård as the vampire, Count Orlok. Commonly mistaken as the vampire’s name, “nosferatu” is actually an archaic Romanian word for “vampire.” Though we never see Orlok’s harrowing visage in the trailer, there is no doubt this is going to be a visually stunning period piece replete with dark, grotesque, and macabre imagery.

Count Orlok in F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu - Eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)

Like the vast array of literary folklore, poetry, and fiction dedicated to the ghastly creatures of the night, most notably Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), there have been countless cinematic depictions since Murnau’s horror classic. Too many to remember, let alone list here, there are more than a few I would like to forget. Some of the better ones include the dark comedies Vampires (2010) and What We Do in the Shadows (2014).

Perhaps a bad sign, I forget my verdict on the three-part BBC/Netflix television series Dracula (2020), but I do recall being amused by the scene where Count Dracula (Claes Bang), after being imprisoned beneath the sea in his coffin for 123 years, resurfaces and is astonished by the technological advances of the modern world. "I knew the future would bring wonders," he tells his victim, "I did not know it would make them ordinary."

Considering Hollywood’s poor track record of late I shouldn’t have high expectations, but for some reason I do. Looking forward to seeing it in the theatre, my only complaint (thus far) is that Nosferatu is being theatrically released on Christmas Day.

Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter, the object of Count Orlok's unwanted affection

Watch Trailer

Time Bandits (2024)

The Supreme Being (aka God),
Time Bandits (1981)

“Is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins, is it better to burn out or fade away?” ~ Barry Judd (Jack Black), High Fidelity (2000)

Unfortunately, as good as Hellboy and Nosferatu look, Apple TV’s upcoming Time Bandits series looks utterly dreadful. I had a whole tirade planned to attack the talentless hacks in the motion picture industry who incessantly set about ruining successful and beloved franchises, [5] however, I was sorry to learn, that director Terry Gilliam, the creator of the original Time Bandits (1981), is affiliated with this project. I could not be more disappointed.

Clearly marketed for children, one can say that I am not the target audience. My response to that would be, so was the original, and as far as I’m concerned it still holds up and makes me laugh. I know this because I recently watched it with my nephews and we were all rolling with laughter. Dark, gritty, smart, and irreverent, there was no sanitizing or dumbing down necessary. Its anti-materialistic message is timeless. Easily the greatest cinematic portrayal of Napoleon Bonaparte I’ve ever seen, it also boasts my favorite rendition of Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr.’s catchy ditty Me and My Shadow. The Robin Hood segment with John Cleese was comedic genius.

(Top) The real Time Bandits: Og, Strutter, Fidgit, Vermin, Randall, and Wally.
(Bottom) The wannabes: I couldn't be bothered to look up their names 

The two versions of the story feel very different. In the original movie, the diminutive highwaymen (“stunted little proles” as the Evil One calls them) have a brief disagreement over control of the map of the universe. “Do you want to be leader of this gang?” asks Randall. “No, we agreed no leader,” responds Strutter. “Right,” says Randall, “so shut up and do as I say.” Hilarious! In the remake, the new DEI time bandits are surrounded by masked warriors and a female samurai threatens to kill them if they don’t identify themselves. “I am Penelope,” says Lisa Kudrow, “and I am in effect the leader.” When all the swords are aimed at her, she cravenly changes her tune: “Fundamentally though we are all equal.” Absolute cringe! If this is the kind of drivel they’re marketing to children these days, it's no wonder they’re all messed up.

Trailers generally offer highlights and spoilers from the show to help entice viewership. If that is the best the new adaptation has to offer then they are in big trouble. Maybe it’s my twisted sense of humor, but I could not muster a single chuckle. Never mind the recent assassination attempt of President Trump, the ongoing political turmoil, or the coming global cataclysm, this garbage proves we are living in the darkest timeline.

It looks like they changed the Supreme Being into Neptune, Triton, or Poseidon

Watch Trailer (at your own risk)

~ By Giovanni di Napoli, July 19th, Feast of Saints Giusta and Rufina

Notes:
[1] Heavy Metal was a sci-fi and fantasy magazine published between 1977 and 2023. Filled with fantastic stories, characters, and artwork like Den (Richard Corben), RanXerox (Stefano Tamburini), and Druuna (Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri), my all-time favorite was a short one-off five-page story about an un-killable warrior named Kyrn by Simon Bisley and Garry Leach in the 1993 special issue Heavy Metal War Machine.
[2] Hellboy (2004) and The Golden Army (2008).
[3] The Crooked Man was a three-part miniseries published in 2008 by Dark Horse Comics in Hellboy issues 33 through 35.
[4] Ibid.
[5] The most unforgivable example to my mind was the desecration of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings by Amazon’s irredeemable Rings of Power (2022).