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Hellboy:
Why most movie sequels suck
THE SEQUEL SUCKS
Hellboy (2004) the film directed by Guillermo Del Torro was a “Comic Book” movie no question. How could it be anything else? Hellboy was first a comic book. Okay. Okay, graphic novel, but it was just one of films generated from this visual-literary genera. Most of the summer blockbusters now are “Comic Book” movies. So Hellboy came from that world, thus “Comic Book” movie it was. Hellboy 1 was a very good example of the modern “Comic Book” movie, while Hellboy 2 (2008) was an example of “the sequel sucked” phenomenon. The Hellboy franchise thus fits well the “Comic Book” film genera stereotype.
THE WISH-FULFILLMENT FRANCHISE
Modern “Comic Book” movies have to follow certain rules, the primary one is faithfulness. The screenplay has to be a close, if not exact representation of the “Comic Book” world. The reader / viewer Fan demands the film character simply be an expanded version of the print character. The Hellboy on the screen has to be the same as the hardcopy Hellboy. What would be the point of taking the comic to the screen if you reinvented the characters? It would be different, too different. The reason for this fidelity is the Fan. By definition a Fan love the same, desires the same, why else be a fan of anything, if it changed. This aspect of the fan is why they call these “Comic Book” film series franchises, then “you always know what you are going to get.”
In addition to familiarity, especially with the Superhero format, what the reader / viewer wants is wish-fulfillment, adolescent wish-fulfillment. Wish-fulfillment in popular entertainment is nothing new. In Charles Dickens’ time and stories, the wish-fulfillment was that the main character always was either secretly royalty or rich or both. Since monarchy has fallen out of favor in the modern society, being royal has been replaced by being superpowered. In a way it is the same dream though, being above the normal folks. Jane Austin’s wish-fulfillment has been sustained into the modern world intact. In her novels the desire was always to marry for love and money and thus results in Jane Austin’s continued popularity. Austin’s main character always started out as a rebel, an outsider, being smart, that turns against dumb-assed tradition, but . . . eventually, despite having a brain; she too will fall into the wish-fulfillment trap. She was unique and odd which was the basis of the conflict and the appeal. But it wouldn’t be wish-fulfillment if she didn’t eventually land a handsome guy that was secretly rich. She succumbs to tradition but in her own unique way. The “unique way” is the most important part of a franchise. Since the basic story is always the same, the reader always finds what they were looking for, but the path to fulfillment must be achieved in a “unique way.”
All the different superheroes out there represent attempts by the “Comic Book” vehicles to provide the adolescent American male reader / viewer wish-fulfillment in a unique way. Those poor guys, of course, always have the same problems, feeling powerless and unattractive. They feel this way simply because they mostly are. To further frustrate their mood, in modern society, adolescence has been extended to mid-twenty years of age, almost a decade after sexual maturity. In the hunter-gatherer culture, when you could make babies, you became an adult. You had to provide food and protection for your children. Getting food for the family certainly is power. Of course, by then you have learned most everything you needed to be that provider. Now, our modern technological culture has gotten so complex, it takes twenty or more years to learn enough to survive in our Electronic Jungle. Modern males now have an adolescence, defined as a period of powerlessness and unattractiveness, of ten or more years, an “extended adolescence.” With this “extended adolescence”, it should be no surprise that “Comic Book” movies have become the dominant style for the Summer Blockbuster. “Extended adolescence” generally, means you are still learning to survive, you are still in school and the schools still take summer vacations. Also, not surprisingly, then excessive superpowers infest these films, it is simply an over compensating wish-fulfillment of the powerless.
HELLBOY – THE LOVEABLE BAD-BOY ADOLESCENT
Hellboy, the hero, specifically, provides wish-fulfilling supernatural powers that are enhanced by the contrast of his being from Hell, ergo his name; he actually is a demon, a devil, a good guy and a bad guy at the same time. Isn’t that another definition of an adolescent male? Identification of the target reader / viewer with the devilish hero protagonist is thus, immediate. Hellboy’s hellishness of course, must be tempered with a good natured comedy and sensitivity. These last two traits are something that most adolescent males strive for and seldom achieve; wish-fulfillment again. Adolescence is a time of extremes, thus enter a required counter-point of extremes which the first Hellboy film delivers.
To totally fulfill its role as a “Comic Book” movie Hellboy 1 provided; visually stimulating oddities and quirky camera angles, a fast pace with back stories that act as catapults to move the entire fantasy world ahead. It poked fun at its own “Comic Bookness”. Hellboy hates his own comic books. It had ultimate human evil, Nazi’s and Rasputin, all with thick foreign accents. It had ultimate ultimate evil from another dimension, a.k.a. hell. It had supernatural technology. It had old tech too, gears, big gears, there was even a clockwork assassin who was neither dead not alive. He was a crazy foreigner with no lips or eyelids and sand for blood, just the sort of grossness an adolescent male giggles uncomfortably at, cutting off of those fleshy parts make all men uncomfortable. He was a clockwork zombie that the gear-head adolescences had to love. It provided an evil but beautiful blonde Nazi Barbie. She represented the bad sex object of every boy’s dreams, a wish-that-shouldn’t-be-fulfilled. All the required gear-head adolescent bad / good boy fantasies were served up on the screen. Yet there was still more to get and this is what made the movie succeed.
THE PSYCHO-SEXUAL CATHOLIC UNDERLAY
Nazi Barbie was motivated by her love for the evil focus, Rasputin. She represented improper love and forbidden sex, just what every adolescent male wants to find out about. She focused the audience’s attention upon the Christian dilemma of sex and love. For the Church, the only true love should be for God. Furthermore, sexual lust should only be used to make more Christian souls. Sex and love on a human level are temptations and all temptations are sins. Anything that you enjoy, actually, is a sin. Nazi Barbie dropped the audience directly into this quagmire. You want her but she was so evil. She was the ultimate temptation. She was the corrupted Eve that fell in love with the snake (Rasputin here). This underlying Catholic difficulty with human sexuality and love was the real reason Hellboy 1 succeeded in its story telling. It was the psycho-sexual images and tangled references that allowed the film to rise above its “Comic Book” genera. Of course, psycho-sexual could also be another term for adolescence. All puns intended.
THE ULTIMATE VILLAIN - SEX
Every great hero needs a great villain, in Hellboy 1; the enemy was thus the greatest one possible, sexual desire in a repressed Christian society. Visual sexual innuendos permeated this film. Del Torro was obvious a Catholic. He is Spanish. It was his own adolescent struggles with ultimate sin and temptation that were the intriguing undercurrents of the first Hellboy film.
Hellboy’s ultimate, ulterior motive or purpose or desire was to destroy the Earth we humans know. Rasputin stated this and even Hellboy’s Earthly father, Travis Broom, implied this. Every adolescent male can identify with the feeling of ultimate destruction. Every male loves to see things blow up. But Travis Broom, along with being an academic and a scholar in the supernatural arts was a real hard-ass. He had a harder ass than the adolescent demon, Hellboy. Travis Broom was the tough Catholic priest school master. He kept Hellboy under control. Controlling evil is what priests are supposed to do, right? Being tough on humans was also what they were supposed to do. The human, Travis Broom’s, dominance over Hellboy, took the evil edge off of Hellboy. It made him just another cute, bad-boy adolescent demon that you just gotta love. Hellboy loved kitties too, so he couldn’t be all bad. Hellboy was violent, dangerous and a big lovable softy. Read here again, adolescent male. There was excessive characterization, it was essential for the comic book extremes. It was required to draw the audience into this completely fantasy, fanciful world of the movie. The dialogue was snappy, funny and even witty to keep the pace quick and fresh.
To extend this cute bad-boy adolescent characterization of Hellboy, he was madly and chastely in love with Liz. Liz was a fire-starter. When Liz got emotional she burst into an eerie blue flame. Yes, the psycho-sexual implications were relatively obvious; her flames were the ultimate orgasm! Hellboy actually cut off and ground down his horns to make himself more attractive to Liz. Oh those pesky, tattle-telling forehead erections. To say Hellboy was horny wasn’t even a pun. Early in the film it was made clear that Hellboy is over sixty years old but acted like an adolescent, again, a mechanism for audience identification. There was the scene where love-sick, jealous Hellboy sat on the roof of building eating milk and cookies with a nine year old boy as they both spy on Liz and the Young new FBI guy. Hellboy even said to the nine year old, “Why am I taking advice from you?” Everyone seems to stumble and fall with this sex- love thing; further audience I.D.
EVIL ROYALTY
Hellboy had a purpose unknown to him, just like in Dickens. It was his right giant stone hand was the key to unlock the barrier between Earth and the Hell dimension. It turns out that Hellboy was evil royalty. Wasn’t most royalty evil, eventually? His right hand and forearm was much bigger than his left. In the second Hellboy movie, he even referred to his right hand as “Merry five fingers.” If you don’t know, this is an adolescent code word for masturbation. Hellboy’s right rock hand was even cylindrical. It fit into a circular orifice on a stone monolith. No really, his right hand was a rock hard penis substitute with the goal of inter-dimensional penetration. Near the end of the film, Hellboy had to perform this supernatural sex act in the presence of Nazi Barbie and Rasputin; the evil three-some. Hellboy’s horns even grew back at this moment. Every adolescent boy understands these spontaneous, inconvenient and conspicuous erections. Hellboy eventually ripped off his own horns and killed Rasputin with one of them. The homo-erotic aspects of this murder were obvious and filled with symbolism. You may think I am simply being overly Freudian here until you hear / see what was released from the other Hell dimension by Hellboy’s penetration. I am not kidding about this, what escaped from Hell to attack the Earth was a giant evil, all consuming womb! Really, fast forward to the end of the film and tell me what else that was? It was a vagina with teeth; an enormous, world-devouring uterus. It slapped the hell out of Hellboy, at first, until Hellboy destroyed it from within by an equally giant explosion. Yes, Hellboy killed the evil uterus with a grenade assisted ejaculation! His explosive climax (all puns intended) obliterated the all consuming womb. It was the ultimate wish-fulfillment for any male, to give a woman an orgasm that kills her. It was so sad because it was true.
But Hellboy got no satisfaction for this visually oddity of a climax. Hellboy felt the truest of loves for Liz. His unfaithfulness was okay though because Liz was dead at the time. Liz was a Sleeping Beauty that could burst into flame. Oh did I tell you that Liz and Hellboy were made for each other because Hellboy was fire proof, so Liz’s fiery orgasms couldn’t hurt him? But to keep the “Comic Book” movie maintaining its own “unique way”, instead of a kiss to resurrect Liz from the dead, Hellboy whispered into the other side and told them if they don’t let her come back to him he would come over there and kick there asses. They, of course, being sensible devils, let Liz come back from the dead into Hellboy’s rock hard, giant womb killer arms.
DO EVIL TO BE GOOD!
Strangely, I saw this movie as a screenplay that William Faulkner might write. The virgin boy loves so strongly he is afraid he will mess up his first sexual experience with his true love, so he goes to the small town witch woman / whore to learn the ultimate nasty. After he learns what he needs, he then he kills the evil witch / whore. It is the only sensible thing to do. Afterwards, the boy will be a man, a perfect lover and know how to handle his young naïve, virgin pure love of a helpless harmless girl. He obtains his perfect lover abilities by first conquering evil. A story of courtly love and spirituality. Yes, if you leave out the prostitution and murder, it is all pure and simple. Of course, if it was Faulkner, everyone would end up with syphilis just to keep everything in proper perspective. But for Liz and Hellboy, the ultimate nasty was okay because Hellboy was fireproof and Liz bursts into flame with an orgasm, no diseases or evils can survive those cleansing fires. The consummation of their relationship would be pathogen free and in this HIV / STD world that was all you can asked for
SUCCEED VS. GREED – THE LACK OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS.
Clearly, it is the underlying psycho-sexual drama within the director’s subconscious that made Hellboy 1 more than just a ‘Comic Book” movie. Despite being riddled with clichés of all kinds that was okay. It was cliché in a unique way. So then why did Hellboy 2: the Golden Army fail? It has all the same details and clichés of the first film, so what was so wrong? Clearly and simply it failed because Del Torro’s Catholic educated and tortured subconscious was missing.
Del Torro gave it away when he did his DVD supplement for Hellboy 2, “Tour of the Troll Market.” “This door we didn’t get to use in the first Hellboy.” “The noodle shop was made for the first Hellboy chase scene but it got cut.” And so on. Hellboy 2 was the out take reel from Hellboy 1 with a sit-com script slapped on it. The Golden Army was not scary even; it was simply excessive gear abuse. They were all gears, no fears nor tears. You could say the same for all of the characters. Only surface, no depth. Hellboy 2 was done quick and slick for the money only, no creation or creativity needed. Just feeding the franchise, quick and dirty wish-fulfillment of the fan base only. Screw the rest of the world. Of course it was bad; there was no emotion in it.
THE END
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Just to be perfectly clear!
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