It’s hard to believe that Hellboy is twenty years old! You probably recognize the character best from his live action movies that came out awhile back. The character was created by Mike Mignola and first appeared in “Dime Press #4” in 1993. To celebrate the big red demon’s birthday, a new blu-ray has come out featuring two animated movies: “Hellboy: Sword of Storms” and “Hellboy: Blood & Iron”. The movies aren’t new, they were made during the peak of Hellboy’s popularity in the 2000’s, so I’m here to determine if they still hold up and more importantly if this is worth your dough!

 

Hellboy: Sword of Storms (2006)

The first movie on the single disc set is “Sword of Storms”. After a professor becomes possessed by two ancient demons and wreaks havoc on a sword collector’s home, the Bureau must investigate what happened. While investigating Hellboy finds the Sword of Storms that transports him to a weird dimension. Now he must journey through this weird realm in an attempt to get home, and solve the mysteries of the Sword of Storms. Along the way he encounters a number of creative characters that he must decide whether to trust or not.

For the most part I believe “Sword of Storms” holds up. There are a lot of cool fight scenes, and interesting creatures. The story is really intriguing and I was genuinely curious to see how it all unfolded. The visuals were pretty well done as well. Some of the voice acting was less than great though. Sometimes I felt like the voice actors weren’t putting their all into their characters and it showed. There were also some issues I had with the tone towards the beginning. I’m just pulling strings here, but there was a comedic moment near the start that shifted into a dramatic moment in the span of seconds and my head spun!
Overall, I think this was a good movie. I enjoyed watching it and revisiting the world of Hellboy. I think this is worth watching just for the alternate dimension alone. There are so many interesting visuals to see and the different people and monsters that Hellboy encounter all provide a unique personality to the story.

Hellboy: Blood & Iron (2007)

Blood & Iron follows the story of Hellboy and friends uncovering a plot to resurrect a vampire from the past of Professor Bruttenholm. Now Hellboy must stop the vampire, but faces a variety of monsters along the way.
Blood & Iron shares a lot of positives and negatives with “Sword of Storms”. The fight sequences are top notch and the story is pretty decent, though I didn’t enjoy it much as Sword of Storms. I think the fight sequences were more exciting in this movie, but the rest of it was pretty lackluster. I also found a similar issue with the voice acting this time around as well. It’s a decent movie if you’re into Hellboy and his dry humor though!

Overall, not as good as “Sword of Storms” but probably worth a watch. I had fun watching it and it made me want to go back and explore some more of Hellboy stuff, whether it be the movies or comics.

This twenty year anniversary blu-ray is pretty neat. I had never seen these movies before my time reviewing them, so this was a great opportunity. It was also a reminder of how awesome Hellboy is! Included with the movies was this small comic book called “Hellboy: In the Chapel of Moloch”. It is a very short little story that was published by Dark Horse comics. It was a cool little bonus.

Is this package worth your money though? If you’re into the Hellboy character, I’d say definitely. If you’re a fan of comic book characters, I’d say maybe. Beyond that probably not. The movies were lacking a lot of what I like but I still found them a little entertaining. The comic included is more of a cherry on top.