HELLBOY: BLOOD AND IRON (2007)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Following SWORD OF STORMS, BLOOD AND IRON was the second of two DTV animated films released in the wake of the successful live-action HELLBOY movie. The story, co-written by the hero's creator Mike Mignola, adapts a continuity from the comics entitled WAKE THE DEVIL, which I have not read. A comment on the DVD extras asserts that WAKE was a very complicated storyline, and this may explain why IRON seems to be a loose assemblage of scenes with Hellboy (Ron Perlman) and his demon-busting buddies, well, busting demons.

A prologue establishes how a young monster-slayer, Trevor Bruttenholm (John Hurt), comes across a malignant female vampire somewhere in Eastern Europe, and after various efforts, he manages to slay it. However, the vampiress Erzebeth Ondrushko (clearly based on the real medieval figure of Erzebeth Bathory) survives by placing her spirit into a nearby iron maiden. (Though the film's subtitle references the famous Bismarck quote, where "blood and iron" signified the importance of power politics, the only significance here seems to be that Erzebeth drinks blood and also bathes in it like her namesake, while her spirit hides in an iron maiden.)

In later years Trevor comes across Hellboy as a child, an orphan-demon abandoned on the mortal plane, and he raises the demon-child to become a righteous ally to humankind. Trevor also forms the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, whose agents include such hyper-powered phenoms as the fire-wielding Liz (Selma Blair), the merman Abe Sapien, and "human metal detector" Sydney Leach. Trevor learns that the BPRD has received a request to investigate odd phenomena at a mansion in the Hamptons, and for some obscure reason the elder statesman that all three of these super-agents accompany him on the investigation. Perhaps he's had some psychic intuition, because until he and his aides arrive, they don't know that the mansion's owner had the place decorated with items derived from Eastern Europe as a publicity stunt. And among those items is a certain iron maiden.

Another DVD comment asserted that the makers were trying to avoid doing a standard vampire yarn. But of course most vampire stories don't have heroes with super-strong hands or flame-powers, so IRON is really a superhero story taking place in a vampire-haunted house. To give the superheroes foes worthy of their mettle, the vampiress-- who needs lots of help to reconstitute herself-- calls up several other magical aides, one of whom is her patroness, the Greek witch-goddess Hecate (Cree Summer).

Once the monsters start popping out of the walls, the plot largely goes out the window, as the spook-fighters battle such menaces as harpy-hags and Hecate in the form of a giant snake-woman. The battles are well animated but neither the goddess nor her vampire acolyte shape up to impressive villains. Hecate recognizes Hellboy as a sort of kindred spirit and tries to get him to join with his own kind, but there's no great suspense about whether the hero will resist this temptation.

Compared to SWORD OF STORMS, which had the advantage of dropping Hellboy in the midst of unfamiliar Japanese boogiemen, IRON is a little, shall we say, undernourished.