hellboy animated: blood and iron

this is the second of two animated hellboy movies. this one follows through on a lot of the promise of the first one, giving us a fully formed world as well as an incredibly interesting story to go along with it. the story follows a group of people who are going into a castle to try and confront and destroy an evil hungarian blood countess. the real great idea with this story is the way in which it is told: it is told as a series of flashbacks. we go back in a series of flashbacks and see where this countess came from and why these guys have decided to hunt her down, all the while we are also following hellboy and the gang as they try and track her down as well. as the film progresses we begin to learn more about the situation as the characters learn it as well. this creates a wonderful mystery we other wise wouldnt have if shown in the right order (in fact, one of the extras is that you can watch the flashbacks in the right order, in doing so it definitely looses a lot of the suspense and intrigue they build by doing it in reverse). over all, this is by far the better of the two animated features, and worth the watch for any hellboy fan.