Screen to Scream: Hellboy and . . . More Hellboy

Watching the recent Hellboy movie, I felt a little bit underwhelmed (luckily, David Harbour has that Stranger Things gig), or maybe I should say overwhelmed. Like many comic movies, the plot is stuffed full with reference after reference to Hellboy stories, which is not necessarily a good thing since Hellboy’s mythos is jam-packed with creatures from literally all of folklore and years of published material. The working man character of Hellboy, which Harbour portrayed well enough, makes him popular with readers, but his rich backstory cannot and should not be shoehorned into a just under two-hour movie.  

That said, I am more than willing to introduce people to this character’s history.  Screen to Scream is meant to be a gateway from horror film to horror literature.  Hellboy has had his adventures on the big and small screen but the Mike Mignola creation’s exploits had already been depicted in many a graphic novel and collection. Here are some of my favorite examples pulled from Hellboy: The Complete Short Stories, Vol. 1.

1) “House of the Living Dead” is an adventure that takes place during Hellboy’s disappearance in Mexico. One of the things that makes sure there are a wealth of Hellboy tales is his versatility. He’s a demon with a large stone hand, a herald of the Apocalypse who instead protects humanity. Hellboy’s backstory is so outlandish, while somehow grounded  in his working-class tough guy attitude, that he can be put in literally any kind of horror/fantasy story, and this story has a little bit of everything, from reanimated flesh golems a.k.a. Frankenstein’s monsters to werewolves to ghosts, and of course, Mexican lucha libre wrestling. This may seem like a kitchen sink kind of horror story, but in Hellboy’s universe it’s both a tragic tale and a showcase of what Hellboy and his large Right Hand of Doom does best.

2) “The Penangallan” showcases another appeal of Hellboy stories: how the authors of these tales, particularly Mignola, draw from all sorts of different folklore from around the world. Consider the titular monster that Hellboy must vanquish. The penangallan is a Malaysian vampire who, when the sun goes down, detaches its head from its body, and that head, dripping blood vessels and all, goes out to hunt for victims. A short but satisfying story, it shows how Hellboy deals with the unusual on a daily basis but handles it with the same simple pragmatism of a plumber dealing with a stubborn leak.

For fans of the Saturday Matinee creature feature, The Double Feature of Evil offers up two Hellboy stories that both reflect the hero’s charm that got him into three movies. Delving deep into his pulp roots, “Sullivan’s Reward” (3) is an interesting take on the possessed house trope that has Hellboy fighting a house. In this story, Hellboy receives punishment and much as he gives it. In the course of his fights, he’ll get knocked down, stabbed, what have you, but he gets back up, no matter how battered and bruised, to continue the fight. (4) “The House of Sebek,” on the other hand, showcases the sense of ironic humor that gives these brief interludes their staying power. Like “Pancakes,” also in this collection, though brief, these tales tell a complete story that may elicit a chuckle if one is not careful.  

5) “The Crooked Man” is one of my favorite Hellboy stories because it literally hits close to home. Hellboy’s job as a paranormal investigator has his traveling around the world, taking on deceased Nordic kings and their spirit wolves as well as the infamous Mexican bogeyman the Coffin Man, but for this story, he travels to the wooded hills of Appalachia to battle with the Crooked Man, an antagonist close to the literary Devil that beleaguered Young Goodman Brown and Daniel Webster, and Hellboy must also deal with some backwoods witchcraft. The Crooked Man is a standard Faustian devil trope, but in many ways is just as terrifying as a demon that lets its head fly around at night to feed. Like many good devils in search of souls, it offers promises of power and desire, and the cost of the soul seems so little until it’s actually lost, proving once and for all that Hellboy is more than a mascot or figure that launched a thousand awesome cosplays. Hellboy’s endearing personality, unending fortitude, and even his unique humanity allows him to fight everything that goes bump in the night.