This isn’t always the case, but since Guillermo del Toro made a more fairytale-like version of Hellboy, the fanciful CGI creatures mixing with practical effects definitely worked to create that lush and visually stunning world.
But with Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen, a more “visceral” approach will help serve the horror movie ambitions that this new, more mature film is trying to set out for.
So while this sounds like an element that distances the new Hellboy reboot from its predecessors, Neil Marshall’s discussion on the Post Mortem with Mick Garris podcast does draw one parallel between the new and old Hellboy film projects: the effects are tied directly into the story’s requirements.