Hellboy: The Crooked Man director Brian Taylor has opened up about the horror aspect of the upcoming R-rated reboot, revealing that Stephen King was one of his inspirations for the film.

During a recent interview, Taylor confirmed that Hellboy: The Crooked Man will indeed be a full-fledged horror story. This is a far cry from the tone and feel of previous adaptations, including Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy films and David Harbour's Hellboy reboot, which leaned more into the magical and fantastical aspects of the character.

"It's a horror story, it's a horror movie — it's very simple," Taylor said (via GamesRadar+ ). "I went into this like, 'This is an adaptation. I'm adapting the story like I would adapt a Stephen King story, it's all in the lyrics. I'm just going to execute it with as much love and care as we can.' I think fans of the original comic are going to love this. I already know there are people online who've seen the teasers and stuff and are like, 'This is the comic.' That's what we want."

He added: "I knew we wouldn't reference the other films at all, they're their own thing. They're great, but this isn't a space opera, is it? It's a folklore story, it's understated. It's an attempt to simplify things a little bit, I think. I feel like movies have gotten really, really complicated. And we're talking about, I mean, movies these days, it's two or three hours long and an hour of that is people explaining things and I still don't get it."