Reviews rated at 4 glooms

"What is it that makes a man, a man? Is it his origins? The way things start? Or is it something else, something harder to describe?" Possibly one of the best lines in the film happens as it starts, setting the expectation for one hell of a ride through a relm that could only be in the darkest corners of reality.

The film begins in 1944 during a top secret mission where a group of american G.I.'s lead by a paranormal advisor Prof. Broom (Hurt), are infiltrating a Nazi occult experiment of the coast of Scotland. This "experiment" was lead by Girgori Rasputin and was called "Project Ragna Rok" meant to turn the tides of WW II by "opening a portal and awakening the Ogdru Jahad whom will usher in a new eden." This experiment was going well until the American forces destroyed the portal device causing the apparent death of Rasputin (again), yet also having been open too long Broom comments that "something must have crossed over"

Enter Hellboy (Pearlman) whom as an infant demon is reffered as a large red ape. Prof Broom, shouldering the responsiblity of being the creature's father figure, begins the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense which is tasked with fighting the things that go bump in the night. Through out the film he takes a lone wolf approach to his job as an agent for the BPRD.

Rasputin is resurrected by two of his followers Elsa and Kronen (later during an autopsy Prof. Broom states that he was born in 1897 in Munich and has a form of masochistic tendency called surgical complusion) by stabbing their guide in the back (as bad guys are notorious for doing) and using his blood in what seems like an engraved maze on a floor, Rasputin rises from a pool of said blood.

Then enter John Myers (a character that was created only for this film) who is being transfered to the BPRD headquarters in Newark, NJ which is beneath a waste managment facility (LOL!!!). Here Myers finds that he was hand picked by Prof. Broom from over 70 canadites, to do what? Be a demons nanny (sounds like a crap gig if you ask me). This is also the introduction of Abe Sapien, fish-like humaniod that is super intelligent and has esp-like powers.

During Myers' introduction to a now adult sized Hellboy, they are called in for a mission. The BPRD team heads to a museum where Rasptuin has summoned Sammael, the "Hound of Resurrection". Sammael is a curious creature in which it lays thousands of dorment eggs and when it dies two more rise in it's place (woah!). The team eventually tracks the creature to it's den and Abe has to go into the sewers to find where it's eggs are being stored and protected, while he does this Kronen distracts Hellboy in a one-sided chase that results in some human team mates and Abe being severly hurt.

Now we meet Liz Sherman (Blair), Hellboy's love interest in the film. She's visited by Hellboy at a psychiactric hospital and is a pyrokenetic that has "quit the Bureau 13 times, but always goes back". It's Myers that convinces Liz to return to the Bureau once again, after she has an "episode" spurned by Rasputin and results in the hospital being destroyed.

After Liz returns to the BPRD, and while out with Myers, Hellboy's jealousy gets the better of him and he escapes the facility to follow them. While out, Prof. Broom is killed by Kronen leaving a clue for Hellboy to follow leading him to Moscow, where the final showdown of the movie takes place. With Prof. Broom now dead, BPRD is lead by Director Manning, whom through-out the film is tasked with keeping the Bureau under wraps and has constant negative opinions about Hellboy.

The team is seperated by a trap into two groups, one being Hellboy and Manning, and an unknown agent. The other Liz, Myers, and another unknown agent. Each group having to navigate through the underground tunnels of a Russian cemetary. Hellboy and Manning's team encouters Kronen once more and Hellboy buries him under a huge clockwork cog in a pit, and leaving Manning behind to find the others. Eventually he finds them in a chamber where there are now dozens of Sammael creatures and their eggs. Hellboy begins fighting the attacking swarm being over-run by the sheer amount of them. Liz saves the day by having Myers hit her to induce an episode immolating both the live Sammy's and it's eggs all at once, knocking the others cold in the process.

As the embers settle, we find that Myers and Hellboy have been chained and Liz is unconscious, lying on an altar. Hellboy's chains have his true name (Anung Un Rama) enscribed on it making him weak, and can only be broken if he speaks his true name. Rasputin forces Hellboy to finish what she started 60 years before and realize his destiny by unlocking the portal to the Ogdru Jahad by stealing Liz's soul and sending it to the "other side". He speaks his true name and the chains break as well as his filed down horns begin to grow and a crown of flame appears over his head, tuning the first lock the portal begins to open and the Ogdru Jahad break free of their prision and begin to enter our world, Myers reminds Hellboy that his father gave him the ability to make his own choices, and in a heroic turn snaps his horns off and kill Rasputin (again) with one of them.

Now with Rasputin dead, from his chest bursts a squaking mass of tentacles and begins to grow to epic proportions. Hellboy ends the creatures tirade by intentionally being swallowed with a bandolear of grenades. Afterward he whispers a threat to whomever is holding Liz's soul, and she returns to life. Sort of anti-climatic, eh?

nWod Refferences:
This film unlike the others that I've reviewed it's jam packed with inspiration for a World of Darkness campaign, so many in fact that I'll only mention a few.

First! Hellboy himself. Not only is this dude a demon. Not the sort that uses the Possesed rules but a walking, talking, steam breathing demon in the flesh. What make him different from other demons? The fact that he was raised by Prof. Broom to be a normal person. this is a classic example of the nature vs nurture issue.

Second! The Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. Nuff said.

Third! The movie follows a fictional history rooted in fact, which personaly make for the BEST sort of basis in any campaign. I mean, the WoD setting's foundation is that the scary things in myth and legend in the shadows are REAL. This film, no the franchise itself, screams World of Darkness.