Hellboy: The Crooked Man (2024)
Genre: Action, Fantasy, Horror, Superhero
Director: Brian Taylor
Writers: Christopher Golden, Mike Mignola, Brian Taylor
Stars: Jack Kesy, Jefferson White, Leah McNamara
Plot: Set in the 1950s, Hellboy and a rookie B.P.R.D. agent find themselves stranded in rural Appalachia, where they uncover a small, isolated community plagued by witches. The sinister leader of the group is the Crooked Man, a local demon with terrifying power.
* * *
[song: ‘Knees Shakin’ by Don Terry]
♪ And I looked at a mountain
♪ And the mountain started shakin” ♪
♪ I looked at a boulder and the boulder started breakin” ♪
♪ I looked at the ground
♪ And the ground started shakin” ♪
♪ When I looked at you my knees started shakin” ♪
♪ Knees shakin” Heart achin’ ♪
♪ Bones a breakin’
♪ I’m in love with you
[clacking ghostly sound]
Joe, you hear that?
No. Hear what?
I thought Big Red wasn’t scared of anything.
You getting the heebie-jeebies, friend?
I am the heebie-jeebies.
Remind me why Junior G-man’s coming along for a ride?
I’m just here to make sure that whatever’s in that box and one pretty lady make another 600 miles to Fairfield without any trouble.
[radio chatter]
So what’s in the box?
Should I tell him?
A funnel-web spider.
Probably the most deadly arachnid in the world.
Only this one seems to house a plausibly demonic entity.
You’re yanking my chain, right?
That’s not the half of it.
There’s all manner of bizarre phenomena associated with this creature.
Temporal, gravitational
I mean things you wouldn’t believe.
I barely believe it and I’ve cataloged the photographic evidence in detail.
It’s been kept sedated in a state of sensory deprivation until we can analyze it in a more controlled setting.
Dammit, you’re not hearing that?
Hellboy, are you okay?
[boxes fall]
What’s happening?
[grunts]
Oh my god!
[song: ‘Knees Shakin” by Don Terry continues]
[spider screeches]
Oh my god!
Ahh! Ahh!
♪ Heart achin’ bones a breakin’ ♪
Ahh! Ahh!
♪ I’m in love with you
Ahh! Ahh!
Ahh!
[grunts]
You alright?
Yeah, yeah.
Hey, lay dead a sec.
[high pitch sinister score]
Ah! Oh fuck!
Oh shit.
[grunts]
Hellboy, Hellboy, look.
I like them better small.
Don’t let him get away. Don’t let him get away.
It’s…
[grunts]
Oh crap.
Who builds a tunnel to hell in the middle of the woods?
Some kind of ventilation shaft.
Coal mining country.
Appalachia.
Well that’s just swell, we lost the cargo.
After you.
[scoffs]
Come on…
[radio static]
He, he, he.
[sinister score]
Joe?
I’m okay.
Field work, huh?
It’s not much like research, is it?
I just don’t get it.
Spider what made it go crazy like that?
Something in these hills.
Trees, and the dirt.
Something haunted.
Evil.
This place has the stink.
I smell pine needles?
Underneath that, Joe.
Madness.
Death, called out to Daddy Longlegs.
Woke him up.
How do you know that?
Dark things call to dark things.
[blows on cigar]
I heard it too.
We are so screwed.
Screwed, chewed, and tattooed.
We need, we need to find a phone. We need to call this in.
Yeah.
Ma?
Around these parts I’m not sure which one of us stands out more.
It’s the devil come up the road.
No it ain’t.
Get!
It’s that red fella from the United Nations.
I’ve seen him once on the cover of Life magazine.
United Nations?
Look at you…
little oriental doll.
Ain’t you a purdy thing.
Um
I’m Special Agent Song, ma’am.
We’ve been in an accident; do you happen to have a phone?
Sure we do.
It’s in back next to the color television and the chicken that shits out silver dollars… and the Mercedes Benz.
Alright.
May as well come inside.
Ma’am, get these on some modern rags, doll, they’re all cut up and bloody.
Oh no, that’s not necessary.
What happened to him?
He ain’t moved a muscle since I found him.
Anyone thought of taking him to the doctor?
You guys have doctors, right?
Or you like him as a rug?
Truck’s out.
Anyhow ain’t no doctor gonna do him no good.
Why’s that?
Cause he witched, that’s why.
Witched?
Child didn’t have no sense.
Kept teasing that Cora Fisher.
Throwing rocks at her window, leaving dead things for her to find.
Told him he better stay away from her. Everyone knows Cora Fisher be a witch.
You said Cora Fisher?
Tom Ferrell. I will be damned.
I ain’t dead yet.
Never thought we’d see you around these parts again.
How many years it been, Tom?
A spell, I reckon.
I found this in the doorstep.
Hmm.
Let’s see it.
Ahh.
Yeah.
Witch ball.
Yeah, I’ve I heard of these.
That’s what made that mark there, ma’am.
You said Cora Fisher did this?
Why, you know her?
Used to.
She wasn’t a witch back then.
Take off that boy’s clothes and boil them, calling it out Cora Fisher’s name.
If she’s one that witched him, that’ll bust the spell.
You going up there, ain’t ya?
Yeah, reckon I will.
First I’m going to stop by and see my mama.
Sorry, Tom.
Figured you knew.
She’s, uh…
she’s dead?
Long time now.
Her brother come up to fetch her. Took her back East.
Oh, ain’t that, uh… what about my daddy, then?
Never did see much of him.
Not once since you left.
Guess he finally drunk himself to death.
He weren’t ever much good.
Well, friends, ma’am, I’ll be on my way.
Just a second, Mr. Ferrell.
Um, was it?
It’s Tom.
Tom, this witch, Cora
you might say, eh
this sort of thing falls under our sphere of expertise.
Do you mind if we come along?
Excuse us. Tom.
Hey. What are you doing?
Field work.
Field work?
You’re lucky to be alive.
I’m taking you back to headquarters, where you belong, in the library, spilling coffee on your weird old books.
There’s something going on here.
You said it yourself.
[grunts]
‘This place has the stink.’
Yeah, it does.
It’s exactly why you shouldn’t be here.
Look, I… I need to understand it.
Okay? And not from some weird old book, but for real.
Like you do.
Besides, are you really in such a hurry to tell Broom we lost the cargo?
If y’all are coming along you best come along.
[song: ‘Dead Man’s Stroll’ by The Revels]
♪ May not believe it but it has to be told ♪
♪ A poor soul doing the Dead Man’s Stroll ♪
♪ [hysterical laughter]
♪ [hysterical laughter]
Ohh.
[knocks]
[clacking sound]
Who’s that there?
[indistinct chatter]
Oh,
look at you
all pie-eyed.
What you come see Grammy Oakum for?
[kraa]
[kraa]
Huh?
What’s that?
[clacking]
Oh, they want to know how to make a witch ball.
Well, I’ll tell you.
It’s easy peasy, you dance around, buck naked calling out: blood of weasel, tail a rat, guts and bladder of a black cat, buzzard eggs and baby’s nails, foot of toad frog, brain of bat.
And you put a pot to boil and it all goes in.
Cut some hairs from your head and your nethers, and wrap ’em round a gob of stuff from the pot.
Make ’em round and a good size for throwing and that’s that.
You people wanna trade your souls for some balls of poison.
Grammy Oakum says: ‘Go right at it.’
[kraa]
And she’ll see you
in hell.
[caw, caw]
Magazine said they found you in a church in England.
So they tell me.
That’s all right.
Everybody knows the devil can’t set foot in no church.
You know I’m not actually, uh
The devil?
Yeah.
Oh, no, I met that son of a bitch.
He don’t look nothing like you.
Here’s Cora’s place.
Cora!
It’s Tom!
Tom Ferrell!
[sinister score]
Cora?
Cora?
You knew this girl pretty well, huh?
Well… we, uh, we weren’t much more than kids.
We were sweethearts.
Figured we’d always be together.
It’s a long time ago, I guess.
Oh, girl what you do?
Great. Fucking witch balls.
There’s more.
Eh, guys?
What do you make of this?
She must be out roaming around.
Just gotta wait for her to get back.
[buzzing]
That’ll be her demon familiar, I suspect.
I hate those.
They feed on the witch they’re attached to.
They feed off each other.
The witch, the animal.
According to the lore, they function as symbiotic parasites.
The lore.
Lord, have mercy.
[scoffs]
My mother was a witch.
I bet they left that little detail out of your magazine, huh, Tom?
Hmm?
I never met my mother.
Never wanted to.
In fact… everything I ever knew about witches I wish I didn’t.
On the way up here you mentioned you saw the devil.
Some 15 years ago, about a mile from this very spot, come upon a stream, and there she was.
No, not the devil.
Close enough.
Her name was Effie Kolb.
I knew right off she was trouble.
I’m ashamed to say I forgot all about poor old Cora Fisher after that.
You see, Effie, she was a witch, and she got me all twisted up, thinking maybe I ought to be a witch, too.
And all that talk about having power over other folks, made it sound real good.
Yeah.
So, I went out and I got me a dead black cat.
While my Ma was out, I boiled it on the stovetop till it went all to pieces.
Took that mess down to the creek, to clean off the bones.
Now Effie told me whatever bone I was holding when the devil showed up that was gonna be my lucky bone.
So arbitrary.
I knew him right off.
I heard tales about him all my life.
Mister Onselm, some of the old folks called him.
Most just called him the Crooked Man.
Crooked Man. Uhh.
As story goes, Mr. Onselm was one of the first white men who came here from Europe hundreds of years ago.
He played both sides in the war between the states.
He came to be a very rich man.
Sounds like a real clever little fella.
How did that work out for him?
They say heaven don’t have much room for rich folks.
They got plenty down there.
They sent him back up,
to claim souls instead of legal tender.
They say he takes a
a copper penny
for every soul he claims for the devil.
He gets enough of them, one day he’ll be rich again.
One look at old Mr. Onselm scared all them witchy thoughts right out of me.
Got lit off for home, swearing the whole way to be good again.
I even took that lucky bone, threw it as far as I could.
Somehow I never could be rid of it.
I was so scared when I got home, I just kept right on running.
Guess that’s how I wound up in the army.
[screams]
I come through it,
without a scratch.
It ain’t because I was born lucky,
smart,
tough…
quite the opposite.
It’s got power in it.
Just like that old witch said:
It’s got the power to hurt people.
But I never used it.
Not once.
Like I said, I never wished harm on anybody my entire life.
But not even them boys over there trying their damndest to put holes in me.
You think that means I ain’t really a witch?
[clanking of wood and glass]
You hear something?
[animal sounds]
[chokes]
[gasps]
Ahh!
No.
Ahh!
Ahh! Ma!
Cora.
[heavy panting]
[cries]
I’m sorry, Cora.
You can’t see me like this, Tom.
Shh, shh.
You just can’t.
Hey, it’s alright.
Hey, Cora, it’s alright.
Shh, Shh.
[cries]
Enjoying that field work, Joe?
How do you get used to this?
I’m gonna get you by the fire.
Why you done it, Cora? Huh?
I know I was a shit for brains kid back then,
but you was the smart one.
After you left, I didn’t know what to do.
I had to go up with Nate Southby.
We married, but he died.
Our babies died.
I was all alone, Tom.
It’s alright. You just gotta rest now, okay?
You just gotta rest.
They’re coming for me.
They’re out there, Tom. They want my soul, and they gonna have it.
Not while I’m here. Not while I’m here.
Hey, Shh, shh, shh, shh.
She out there!
She out…
Shh, shh.
[cries]
[clacking sound]
Looks like Deadsville to me.
[horse neighs]
Ohh.
[sinister score]
[gasps]
Hey, you’re alright.
Who’s this now?
This ain’t who I come to see.
Well, don’t I just like the look of you.
She never did have much use for going to church clothes.
There’s my Tommy.
She don’t look a day older than the last time I saw her.
The only way to tell how old a witch is,
you gotta cut her leg off and count the rings.
You come back to see me, Tommy?
Hell no, I ain’t.
You know who I came to see.
Not that pitiful thing Cora Fisher I hope.
Why, she ain’t even much worth tormenting, but I do it all the same.
[cries]
How’s a girl expected to pass the time?
I don’t know what you ever saw in that tragic little creature, Tommy.
Why she barely got any soul to steal.
You keep her name out of your mouth, you wicked old whore!
[giggles]
I’m just playing.
You ‘member how I like to play, Tom?
Don’t you?
I know why you’re here.
And he knows it, too.
He got,
let’s just call it
un-finished business with you.
I know.
I aim to finish it.
[laughs]
Ahh!
Jesus
Hey!
Still a wild hare with more spunk than sense, ain’t ya?
Hey that’s enough of that.
You tell your master if he wants to get to these poor folks,
he’s gonna have to go through me.
You? Ha. Mister
he ain’t a tiny bit afraid of you.
And Tommy,
I near forgot.
He asked me to give you a present.
No!
‘fraid he don’t look like much.
I’ve been riding him pretty hard every night since you left.
Guess he pretty near wore out.
Curse you, Effie Kolb!
Curse you!
This can’t be real.
Radioactive, man.
Oh,
Oh, no.
No.
[horse whinnies]
What’d they do to you, Daddy? What?
[wheezing]
Daddy. Shh, shh, shh. Hey.
Tommy.
That’s you, boy?
You, you come home.
You.
Come…
I’m sorry, Daddy. I…
Cora?
Is Reverend Watts still in that little church up on the side of the mountain?
He is, but you can’t go up there, Tom.
You heard Effie Kolb,
Crooked Man’s waiting on ya.
Maybe he is…
Maybe that’s why I came back.
Thought I’d have it out with that old devil.
Not before I get this sinner buried in church ground.
[buzzing]
Oh, my God, Cora!
Oh!
[buzzing]
[heavy panting]
[gasp]
Oh.
You didn’t want me to squash?
No,
squashing’s good.
Totally approve of that.
[song: ‘Did You’ by Morrie Morrison Orchestra ft Alyce Hauser]
♪ Did you ever really love me? ♪
♪ Did you ever really care?
♪ Did you ever really miss me? ♪
[mumbling]
♪ Kiss me,
♪ I wonder if your heart was ever there ♪
What?
Nothing. Shh…
Hey, try to get some Z’s, okay?
Yeah right.
♪ Or did you really tell a lie ♪
♪ Did you ever really
♪ ever really care?
[kraa]
♪ ever really love me?
[clacking sound and screams]
[screams]
You want me to take him for a while?
Oh, it’s my sins that done it. He’s my burden to carry.
Think of it a little different,
I think sins are just a part of who we are.
We’re born with them and we’ll die with them.
You mean like a Adam and Eve kind of sin?
I mean sins you can’t shake.
Saw ’em off,
and they just grow back.
I’m speaking metaphorically, of course.
Friendly folks around here.
Salt of the damn earth.
Maybe you can help me with something, Cora.
I’ll try.
I’ve been studying spells.
What makes them tick?
It’s more than just the words, right? I mean,
an incantation on its own does nothing.
Well, in my case, I sold my mortal soul off to the Devil.
So that probably helps grease the wheels some.
Right.
Besides that?
Needs to touch your heart.
When I do a hex,
I think of the saddest thing I can.
That seems to make the magic come on stronger.
Ain’t none of my business,
ma’am,
have you been trying to do witch magic?
It’s just research.
You want to be real careful with that.
Coal mining country.
Yeah,
whole territory’s snake full of tunnels.
If these woods are alive,
tunnels are like veins underneath the skin.
[kraa]
[clacking]
Ohh.
What is it?
Nothing.
Cora? Cora?
Cora?
Cora!?
Cora?
Cora?
Cora!
[anxiety inducing score]
That’s interesting.
[bones cracking]
Ahh!
Arg!
Ahh!
Ahh!
Fuck.
Am I dead?
Maybe.
Well,
that’s all right.
Everybody knows the devil can’t set foot in no church.
What the hell is this place?
I think you know.
It’s your mama, ain’t it?
That’s news to me. I’ve never seen her face.
Yeah, I guess that’s her.
She tried to get out of paying for all them sins.
Now she’ll have no rest from tormenting.
She ain’t slept a wink for more days than I know how to count.
[gasps]
Sins?
They couldn’t have been that bad,
right?
They were many. Consorted with demons,
flew upon the black goat and gave herself for the Sabbat,
changed her shape into that of varmints,
and things unnameable.
[wings flap]
He’s here.
Wow.
That’s a big fucking bird.
Beast takes many forms,
this be but one.
Sweet
Sarah.
What the fuck?
Please.
Mercy.
If you will forgive me, let me go up to God.
To God?
No. This is where you belong.
My Lord.
My master.
What more can I give thee?
So much more.
Can you not feel the new life growing inside you?
It can’t be possible?
A dark thing.
Malignant.
It can’t be for I am dead.
You sang out to the deep of night,
and the night things answered.
Now you will give the world a gift.
A gift.
A son.
[screams]
A beautiful son.
Ow.
Woah, easy there, easy.
I’m fine.
Oh shit, my head feels like Minnie Minoso took a swing at it.
Ahh.
He brought you back.
Cora. Cora!
Cora!
Cora.
[gasps]
I used it.
I used the lucky bone.
If I wasn’t a witch before…
I surely am now.
[somber score]
There you go, Daddy.
It’s consecrated ground.
Let’s get you inside, you old sinner.
Reverend.
That you? Tom Ferrell?
How’d you know, Reverend?
She told me.
She?
There’s a girl here.
Come in a couple of minutes before you fellas. Bold as brass.
You don’t see her?
Well,
maybe she a ghost.
Is it Cora Fisher?
Cora Fisher?
Yep.
Remember her when she was just a little tadpole.
Devil might have got a body,
but he didn’t get her soul.
It’s y’daddy, ain’t it?
Figured he ought to be buried in proper church ground.
So he shall.
All right, Daddy.
But I think you got another purpose for being up here on the Hurricane, don’t you?
Yes, sir.
We, uh,
we aim to go up that hill.
You’re going to his house?
Now, why would any damn fool want to do a thing like that for?
My daddy’s dead.
Cora
You’re dead.
I’m sorry, girl.
Maybe all that’s left to do is surrender myself to him.
Tell him, take my body,
take my soul,
take your goddamn penny.
Just so long as there’s no more killing on my conscience.
After all, a deal’s a deal, ain’t it?
That’s ridiculous.
You were just a kid. A deal with a demonic entity?
How can that possibly be binding?
Oh, it be binding.
Hellboy.
Yeah, it’s kind of binding.
Look, there may be some wiggle room.
It’s what I’m here for.
To renegotiate.
Negotiate, my ass.
Well, he do seem like a pretty persuasive fella, Reverend, don’t he?
Men’s pride and folly, all that is.
Well, if you’re gonna go, best do it when the sun’s up in the sky.
His power’s strongest when it’s dark.
Y’all stay here tonight.
We got to boogie-woogie, preach.
Looks like we still have some daylight left.
You sure about that?
[sinister score]
That, that’s, no, wait, that’s not possible.
no, the Earth, the Earth doesn’t spin. It, it, that’s not how it works.
[laughs]
We on his time up in the Hurricane.
[clacking]
[psychotic echoing chants]
We’ve got company.
A lot of witches around these parts.
Always have been.
Used to be plenty of regular folks, too.
Nowadays, mostly just witches.
Haha! Hallelujah.
And I will lead the blind by a way they know not.
And I will make the darkness light for them.
And the crooked things straight.
Oneiros und Nótt
SchlieBßen Sie ihre Augen
[whispers]
Needs to touch your heart.
When I do a hex.
I think of the saddest thing I can.
Let not your hearts be troubled.
Them witches. Can’t set foot on this holy ground.
And that black magic.
Ain’t no good here.
I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
You doubt the power of prayers, son?
I just like to have some excessively high-caliber ammo on hand.
Just in case.
Oh! Sheee. Ha!
Tommy…
Shhh!
Tommy…
I know you can hear me in there.
Ain’t you had enough trouble for one day?
[moan] It ain’t even really begun.
All your friends in that church with you,
they all gonna die.
All on your account.
That’s why you gotta come out and face him.
[giggles]
[knock]
[knock]
[knock]
[screeching]
Elvis’s ass don’t shake this hard.
Reverend, the coal mines, do they run under this church?
Oh, they run everywhere.
A coal mine collapsed about 30 years ago. Last time the ground shook like this.
100 men killed.
Buried alive.
Great place to build a church, huh, Joe?
Where’s Tom?
[laughs]
I don’t see what’s so godforsaken funny.
[clacking]
[chants]
[hellish whispers]
Little Tom Ferrell, come back to see me.
Bring me my lucky bone.
I come to collect it, Tom Ferrell.
Yeah and I’m gonna give it to you.
You gotta make me one promise.
No harm comes to those good folks in there.
But it was you who put them in harms way,
not I.
All right, then.
All right.
[chants]
I don’t think so.
See, I don’t like this deal.
You want it too bad,
and that makes me not want you to have it.
Go on inside, Tom.
Go.
Well, ain’t you a pug-ugly son of a bitch?
Pot calling the kettle black here, but
Jesus H.
[chants]
Oh, yeah, that’s right.
The nympho-broad in the tree mentioned you weren’t afraid of me.
Well guess what? I’m not afraid of you either.
So why don’t you turn around,
take your crooked ass out of here, and take those dizzy bitches with you.
You had a different aspect
when you watched your mother burn.
What the hell you say, Gumby?
Be gone from this church, Mr. Onselm. You be gone now.
You saw how she is.
This sorrowful thing.
She suffers so.
But I have it in my power to mollify her pain.
Let her feathered soul take wing.
Really?
You would do that?
Yeah.
Something small in return is all I ask.
That you twist off the head of that little Tom Ferrell.
and bring it hither.
We’re just
renegotiating.
I’m sure we can see eye to eye.
Why?
You got witch blood in you, friend.
You’re more like me
than you are like them.
Come on, snake, let’s rattle.
[buzzing]
[buzzing intensifies]
Ohh!
[laughs]
Help him.
Oh, come on!
Oh! He’s kilt. He’s kilt for sure.
Arg! I ain’t kilt.
You can’t hide in there forever, Tommy.
Crooked Man gonna wear you out, boy.
Oh, you shut your cursed mouth.
He gonna heap sorrows on you a hundred times worse than what you drunken
daddy ever got.
You get out of my skull, you witch! Witch! Get out of my skull!
Ahh!
Joe,
I need you.
Reverend.
Now we both know, Reverend, a deal’s a deal.
Here’s what I’ll do.
I’ll buy that lucky bone from you.
Ain’t nothing in here for sale to you, Mr. Onselm.
Do it.
Okay.
Urmm! Ahh!
Come on, Joe, you gotta pull harder.
Come on!
Ahh!
Uhh, I know you got no use for legal tender, old man.
But what about time?
What do you give for
ten years of it?
What are you doing to me, Satan?
How about
twenty?
Fix up those
eyes of yours while we’re at it.
Come on!
No, sir! I come fairly by my years and my afflictions,
and I don’t want nothing else.
[clacking]
Abby Riley done poisoned two husbands. How’d she get planted in a church yard?
So many sinners in this consecrated ground.
[chants]
Flesh rots, but the sin goes on.
[chants]
Oh shit.
Okay, are you sure you’re okay? Because…
You want to stick your finger in?
No I do not.
You can’t keep bleeding like this
I’ll be fine.
No, no, you will not be fine
Bobbie Jo.
Part of the job.
Okay? I can’t wait to get my hands on that Howdy Doody fuck.
Where the hits just keep on coming.
He looks a little different, doesn’t he?
Mm-hmm.
You always did like them pretty girls, didn’t you, Reverend?
I could feel your eyes on me giving them Sunday sermons.
You go lay back down, Abigail. This ain’t your world no more.
Kiss me, Father.
Kiss me like you always wanted to.
Kiss this.
[chants]
What are you doing?
Callie Hicks, fornicator.
Fornicator!
Abel Jacobs.
Gambler.
Josie Ward.
Philanderer.
Manly Langrishe.
Lying drunk.
Lying drunk!
Nathan Green.
Murderer.
Like ducks at the county fair.
Flora Sue Baker.
Cheatin’ whore.
Cheatin’ whore.
Ada Calder.
Child killer.
[indistinct chants and hysterical laughter]
They were dead, and buried.
Sins were forgiven.
Forgiven don’t mean forgotten.
Wyatt Ferrell.
Drunken old fool.
Ha ha ha.
Agsk
Ugh!
What is this?
No, wait, wait.
Fuck.
Sorry Daddy.
Lord, I can’t look on this no more.
Take my eyes away.
And I don’t want no gifts from the devil.
Thank you, Lord.
Tom Ferrell!
Give me that old cat bone!
I was never gonna use it, Reverend.
You watch now. I ain’t no perfect man.
None of us is.
I got a shadow in my heart like anyone else.
But you gonna see that light, Tom Ferrell.
You gonna let it blaze bright inside of you.
Just like that light be blazing in me.
I’m all fired up.
I’m gonna bust that evil wide open.
I’m gonna squeeze it.
I’m gonna squeeze the Holy Spirit
into this vile unlucky bone!
I can feel it.
Look at it blaze, Tom Ferrell.
Look at it!
Every grave in this yards
been dug with this shovel.
If it ain’t full of God
then nothing is.
Thy rod and thy staff!
They comfort me.
That’ll work.
Yep.
[coughs]
[clacking]
[caw]
He’s going home.
Ah-ah. Hellboy, no.
We call this in and come back with the whole team from the bureau.
Better to finish this. He’s hurt.
He’s weak.
Joe, you’re done.
Staying back here with the Reverend.
No.
We don’t come back,
you keep going down that mountain and you don’t stop until you find a telephone.
Don’t ever come back here.
What?
Keep the shovel.
[song: ‘Enchanted Sea’ by The Bentleys]
It’s been called that since I can remember.
A long time back a hurricane blew down a mess of trees on this mountain.
They never grew back.
No one still alive remembers it.
Might have been a thousand years ago for all I know.
And hell, maybe it wasn’t no hurricane at all.
How’s that?
Well,
the Indians say it’s always been bad.
They say there’s ghosts and critters up here older than the flood.
Scarce animals. Shonokins. Mountain spirits.
Here me out,
I might be just talking out of my ass here, but
might be looking at a dimensional rifting.
Lovecraft type scenario.
The old gods forcing their way into our world type thing.
I don’t know nothing about that, but
it’s a queer, bad feeling place, that’s for sure.
Gonna need a new shovel.
Something in these hills.
Something haunted.
Evil.
In the trees.
In the dirt.
Tom said these hills were like a living thing.
Come again?
He said the old mines were like its circulatory system.
Its veins running underground.
The Crooked Man, I think,
I think he draws power from it.
You got something on your mind, girl?
Something I don’t like.
Maybe if we disrupt the power source, we can hurt him.
What?
I’m talking about sabotage.
If this were a war and those tunnels were supply lines, we’d plant dynamite.
You gonna dynamite that mine?
No.
Maybe something better.
A spell.
Girl,
You outta your mother fucking mind.
I didn’t know if it was real,
or if it was just a story they tell little chaps to scare them.
You ready?
They told me them stories too.
Could use a woman’s touch.
[kraa]
They go down into them mines.
Make me understand
why they built a church
on top of a very convenient access
to a collapsed coal mine?
Explain it to me like I’m a little…
a little slow.
Wha-
S’ppose they thought
it was some kind of doorway
‘tween this world and the other.
They reckon they’d drop a church on top.
Consecrate the soil.
Block the doorway.
Maybe not such a swell idea.
Worked all right up until today.
It’s dark down there.
Dark as the devil’s asshole.
If we’re going…
I’m bringing this along.
Maybe it got a bit of holy left in it.
We?
No, Reverend, I…
Down there,
I ain’t much more blind than you is, girl.
[baby cries]
[baby screams]
I always figured rich folks had them some real fine soirees.
Mm-hmm.
Real fine.
All right.
[baby whimpers]
Tom!
Bet you wishing your friend was here.
Yeah, he’s not afraid of anything.
Oh, I know somethin’ afraid of:
he afraid to tell you how he really feels about you.
Tom?
Tom.
Ahh!
Something’s coming.
[laughter]
Ahh!
Run, girl!
Hurry up! This way, this way!
And he shall eat the flesh of your sons,
and the flesh of your daughters
shall he eat.
Destroy them in wrath.
Destroy them
that they may be no more.
Magic ain’t like a bullet, girl.
You just can’t pull the trigger.
Some things you can’t understand by thinking.
It comes from the spirits, not the meat!
Ahh!
Ahh!
Oh, crap.
Ahh!
[baby toy sounds]
When’s the last time you felt the touch of a woman, Tommy?
Have all these years been so lonesome?
Did you sit up and dream about me?
I know it, I bet you never stopped thinking about the way I touched you.
You got something hard for me, Tommy?
Yeah, I do.
Ahh!
[gasps]
I know well thou are my son.
Thine eyes,
thine eyes attest to it.
Let’s not pretend this is some beautiful moment.
I don’t care about you.
You never gave a damn about me.
Thou should look upon me and say these things?
I should let you burn!
I gotta get you out of here.
No, my sweet child.
I can’t be saved.
This burning be my fate.
For them many sins I done,
all us witches end up the same.
[panting]
[clacking]
[panting]
There’s only one way to end this pain.
Destroy me, my son.
No.
No, I can’t do that.
You can’t ask me to do that.
For thy scorn.
For thy wrath.
Thou were right to hate me.
I hated myself!
Myself!
This goddam monster you made!
Oneiros und Nótt, beruührt die Gedanken meiner Feinde.
SchlieBßen Sie ihre Augen und fangen sie bis zum naächsten
Sonnenaufgang in Traäaumen ein. Oneiros und Nótt, beruührt die Gedanken
chlieBßen Sie ihre Augen und fangen sie bis zum naächsten
Oneiros und Nótt, beruührt die Gedanken
Sie ihre Augen…
Let me be as a dream.
Forgotten,
Dust without meaning.
Oneiros und Nótt, beruührt die Gedanken meiner Feinde.
SchlieBßen Sie ihre Augen und fangen sie bis zum naächsten
There’s gotta be another way.
There is none.
Oneiros und Nótt, beruührt die Gedanken meiner Feinde.
SchlieBßen Sie ihre Augen und fangen sie bis zum naächsten
Sonnenaufgang in Traäaumen ein.
This agony, I can’t bare it any longer.
Please!
No!
Ahh!!
Ahh!!
You alright, big fella?
Some kind of booby trap.
A spell.
I almost…
something broke it.
[crows]
[clacking]
It smells like death,
and bird shit.
Wait here.
[demonic sounds]
[growl]
Oh crap.
No, no, no, no.
No, no.
Please, please, fuck!
[loud thump]
[breaking glass]
[demonic squeal]
Ahhh!
Gah! Ahh!
Ugh.
Egh! Guh!
Oh! Ahh!
Uah!
[scream]
[buzzing]
Better you’d given me that boy’s head when you had the offer.
That’s twice you might have saved your fork-tongued mother.
Well, but you’ll be by her side soon enough,
suckling that black teat in hell.
You must die in this house to feed the earth beneath,
to feed these hills,
these ancient stones that do live.
Hey there, devil,
I got something for you.
That’s for Cora Fisher.
You go on and choke on it, son of a bitch.
[vomiting sounds]
[coins falling on the floor]
Look at this devil, fools himself into thinking he’s a man.
Your road ends in the dark like mine.
And this, witch,
No I ain’t.
You’ll burn, both of ya.
Like Cora Fisher burns.
Like your witch mother burns.
That’s all for you.
[gun shot]
It’s all souls, ain’t it?
[coins drop]
Look at it.
You think that one’s mine?
I don’t know.
Guess you’ll find out someday.
Like all of us.
You know what I think, Tom?
I think that so-called lucky bone of yours, I think it’s just a cat bone.
All this time you thought it held the power, but I think the power was in you.
He was afraid of you.
He was right to be.
[cries]
[song: ‘Sinner You’d Better Get Ready’ by The Louvin Brothers]
♪ Oh sinner you better get ready ♪
♪ The time’s a comin’ when the sinner must die ♪
♪ Oh God gave Noah…
Ha, I’ve woke up to worse.
All of a sudden I’m old.
Tommy…
I don’t know how to be old.
I knew I held on to this old bridle for a reason.
♪ singing Halleluya, sinner you bet get ready ♪
♪ The time’s a comin’ when the sinner must die ♪
All us witches end up the same.
Joe.
Joe!
Arrgh!
Bobbie Jo,
Hey, wake up. Joe, wake up!
[cough]
Come on. Come on.
Get up.
You went inside the tunnels.
Unbelievable.
You’re supposed to be the smart one.
Yeah, you’re telling me.
Oh, look…
I got the cargo back.
Nice field work, right?
Besides, I wasn’t down there by myself.
I was with the Reverend the whole time.
Never would have gotten out of there without him.
[somber score]
I can’t wait for the 60s.
60s, yeah?
This ain’t my decade, Bobbie Jo.
I feel good times are coming.
I think so, too.
I ain’t gonna miss this place much.
Me neither.
Can’t wait to get home and just document all this.
That Tom Ferrell’s not a bad egg.
Lucky you came along when you did.
He just needed a little push, that’s all.
[radio]
Hey!
Not afraid of anything, are you, big guy?
Yeah, well, there’s an upside to looking like this, Joe.
You see this face in the mirror long enough the monsters don’t look too bad.
Yeah, yeah.
I know something you’re afraid of, though.
There you are.
[song: ‘Trouble in Mind’ by Cowboy Roy Brown]
♪ Trouble in mind,
♪ I’m blue, yeah ♪
♪ I won’t be blue always, Bob will ♪
♪ Cause that sun is gonna shine ♪
♪ in my back door someday ♪
♪ Hope soon and aha boy
♪ Trouble in mind is blue ♪
♪ I just see me blockade June ♪
♪ When you see me laughin’
♪ I’m laughin’ just to keep from cryin’ ♪
♪ Gotta let me ♪
♪ Trouble in mind, I’m blue
♪ And I won’t be blue all way, why? ♪
♪ Because sun’s gonna shine in my back door some day ♪
♪ Going down to the river
♪ And I’m going to take my rockin’ chair ♪
♪ What you gonna do?
♪ And if the blues take me I’m gonna rock away from here ♪
[ghostly clacking]
