| NOTE: This article is about the incarnation of Jeremiah Witkins from the 2024 movie. The mainstream version can be found here. |
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| “ | I heard tales about him all my life. Mister Onselm, some of the old folks called him. Most just called him The Crooked Man. As story goes, Mister Onselm was one of the first white man who came from Europe hundred of years ago. He played both sides in the war between the states. He came to be a very rich man. They say heaven don't have much room for rich folks. They got plenty down here. They sent him back up, to claim souls instead of legal tender. They say he takes a copper penny for every soul he claims for the devil. He gets enough of them, one day he'll be rich again. | „ |
| ~ Tom Ferrell telling the backstory and origins of the Crooked Man. |
| “ | Crooked Man: Little Tom Ferrell, come back to see me? Bring me my lucky bone. I come to collect it, Tom Ferrell. Tom Ferrell: Yeah and I'm gonna give it to you. You gotta make me one promise. No harm comes to those good folks in there. Crooked Man: But it was you who put them in harms way, not I. |
„ |
| ~ The Crooked Man's introduction. |
| “ | Something small in return is all I ask: That you twist off the head of that little Tom Ferrell, and bring it hither. We're just... renegotiating, ain't we? I'm sure we can see eye to eye. Why? You got witch blood in you, friend. You're more like me than you like them. | „ |
| ~ The Crooked Man's offer to Hellboy. |
Jeremiah Witkins, also known as the Crooked Man, is the titular main antagonist of the 2024 superhero action horror film Hellboy: The Crooked Man, based on the Dark Horse Comics character of the same name.
Like in the comics, he was a thief who was executed for his crimes before becoming "The Crooked Man", a supernatural entity who haunts the Appalachian Mountains.
He is portrayed by Martin Bassindale.
Biography[]
Early life[]
According to local legend, Jeremiah Witkins was one of the first settlers in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. He built his house in an area called The Hurricane. He was also one of the worst men in his lifetime, amassing his fortune from the misery of others. Stirring conflict between his fellow settlers and the native tribes, he sold liquor and guns to both sides, during both the American Revolution and the Civil War. Witkins was eventually hanged for his crimes, and his fortune was dispersed to the winds, but his name and memory became cursed among the locals. However, because of his impressive record of sin, "the Devil" sent Witkins back to the mortal world as a demonic soul collector.
Now known as the Crooked Man, Witkins recruited the witch Effie Kolb as his right-hand woman while turning local women into witches by preying on them during the low ebbs of their lives. He collected souls in glass jars, where they took the appearance of gold coins.
When he was a boy, Tom Ferrell was seduced by Effie Kolb, who convinced him to make a Lucky cat bone with a Satanic ritual. Yet on his way home from completing the ritual, Tom saw the Crooked Man watching him from the woods, and ran home in terror, swearing never to use the bone's power.
Hellboy: The Crooked Man[]
In 1958, while on their way to a rural church to bury the body of his father, Tom and Hellboy were attacked on the road by Witkins's minions, and fought them off, convincing Tom that he had, without wanting to, used the bone and thus completed his own damnation.
As they took refuge inside the church with Reverend Watts, the Crooked Man hovered outside with Kolb and a host of witches, demanding that Tom pay his side of the bargain. Reverend Watts told Tom that he had never used the bone, that in spite of his youthful foolishness he was still a good man, and the Devil had no claim on him. Watts then challenged Witkins to come and "fetch" Tom himself, knowing that Witkins and his ilk could not cross the threshold of the church. As day broke, Reverend Watts consecrated the bone, turning it into a holy object, and did the same to a shovel, which Hellboy used to pulverize the Crooked Man's human form, causing Kolb and the other witches to flee.
Hellboy and Ferrell then went to Witkins's house in the Hurricane, and found him in his true demonic form: a twisted, crab-like creature hunched over his jars of gold, muttering, "It's mine... it's all mine..." Tom threw the lucky cat bone at him, causing the demon to disappear. Tom was unsure whether he had set the souls of Witkins's other victims free, or sent them down to Hell with him, but the Crooked Man was finished.
Personality[]
He is quite sophisticated and polite, being highly friendly to everybody he talks, but in general that was only his facade to conceal and hide his villainous nature from everybody. His villainous schemes were also extremely unpleasant and he was extremely calculating and manipulative when it comes to his plans, including his highly intelligent nature. Overall, Watkins is a ruthless, treacherous and highly sadistic satanist, without any value for human life.
Trivia[]
- He is the second main Hellboy movie villain to have human origin, the first being Grigori Rasputin from from the very first Hellboy 2004 movie.
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