Everybody’s favorite stone-handed demon is back! That’s right, Hellboy returns to theaters this Friday. This time, however, David Harbour takes the reins from Ron Perlman as the title character. Visually Harbour’s Hellboy looks almost identical to Perlman’s, but that’s about where the similarities will end. This incarnation of the character promises to be darker, and a hell of a lot gorier, than its predecessors.

Hellboy
Image: Lionsgate

All signs point to the Hellboy reboot being much more in keeping with the Dark Horse Comics source material. While Guillermo del Toro’s original film was entertaining, it shied away from the bloodier side of the story. To the contrary Neil Marshall, director this time around, had no such reservations. That’s clearly evident in the red-band trailer for the film that LionsGate released last month. [Fair warning: the trailer contains everything you’d expect for an R-rated film: language, blood, guts, and gore.]

Hellboy is Back and Bloodier Than Ever

Milla Jovovich joins Harbour as the Blood Queen hell-bent on destroying the world. Daniel Dae Kim (Lost; Hawaii Five-O), Sasha Lane, Ian McShane (Deadwood), and Thomas Hayden Church fill out the impressive cast. Fans of the comic are hoping the film will return Hellboy to his roots.

Hellboy
David Harbour and Daniel Dae Kim sign autographs to promote Hellboy at New York ComicCon this past October.

Here’s the official synopsis from the film’s website:

Hellboy is back, and he’s on fire. From the pages of Mike Mignola’s seminal work, this action packed story sees the legendary half-demon superhero (David Harbour, “Stranger things”) called to the English countryside to battle a trio of rampaging giants. There he discovers The Blood Queen, Nimue, (Milla Joovich, Resident Evil series), a resurrected ancient sorceress thirsting to avenge a past betrayal. Suddenly caught in a clash between the supernatural and the human, Hellboy is now hell-bent on stopping Nimue without triggering the end of the world.

If the trailer is any indication, this reboot promises to be bloody-good fun.

Hellboy opens this Friday, April 12 in theaters everywhere.