Give it to Guillermo, decent first outing into feature length with a cool Spanish take on the vampire mythology. Sets a good precedence here for the films to come, dark take on a fairy tale but in modern times. At least modernish. This looks like present day Cuba or like 1950s Spain, hard to tell, with a shitload of Volkswagon Beetles. A few cockroaches. And...something else.
Grandpa and his little granddaughter obviously have a good bond. They spend their days at his antique shop doing puzzles and whatnot. Then the tweaker arrives, looking for...something. It’s found before the boss shows up, or at least the boss’s thug, good ole Ron Hellboy Perlman himself, looking for a statue and advice on a new nosejob. Odd pairing, really. He’s kind of a brute, so typecasting wins again! Then the other stuff, won’t get into too much here, I really don’t like to tell tall tails out of school but this one is a whopper! Maybe a whopper junior. Possibly just a hamburger but with a nice amount of fixins on it. I shouldn’t do reviews hungry.
This is more a drama with a nice little horrific twist. If Hellboy didn’t swear so much, it would make for a nice family film with some blood and a little gore. Cool visuals of the mechanics throughout, and decent enough in pacing to show the cruel effects of an unnatural addiction. Grandpa does a great job with it, the bathroom scene with the blood is minimalist but horrifying in the way it plays out. Great attention to the details of the props and writings, lends extra level of credence overall.
