Like most Guillermo Del Toro films, the Hellboy movies (adapted from Mike Mignolas critically-acclaimed comics about the titular supernatural investigator and giant half demon bringer-of-the-apocalypse) are a testament to imaginative and lovingly detailed production design. Nowhere is this brought to bear more than with the first instalments secondary villain, Karl Ruprecht Kroenen. A former Obersturmbannführer in the Third Reich, Kroenen is a masochist with an addiction to surgery whose germophobia requires him to wear a skintight gas mask at all times. He survives impalement in the films opening scenes set in 1944, and lives until the present day with a clockwork heart and literal dust in his veins, whereupon he returns to the fray as the mad monk Rasputins enforcer and assassin, wielding two swords like some freaky robot ninja. In case the above doesnt make it very, very clear, Kroenen is one of the best things about the film, which is saying something, as Hellboy is a bloody brilliant piece of work. Tragically, he didnt make it back for the chaotic 2008 sequel The Golden Army and Del Toro doesnt think his planned threequel will ever get financing. Its our loss.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
