In theaters

HELLBOY, directed by Guillermo del Toro, written by del Toro and Peter Briggs, based on the comic books by Mike Mignola, 132 minutes, rated PG-13.

“Hellboy” is not the new Mel Gibson movie, though imagine the controversy had it been the new Mel Gibson movie. Think of the advertising campaign: “Mel does Hell!” Now imagine the profits.

Still, as fun as that would have been, it’s not Gibson hiding out in the Hellboy suit. Instead, it’s Ron Perlman, the 53-year-old actor who once growled so convincingly in TV’s “Beauty and the Beast.”

Here, Perlman is a giant red beast with blunted horns jutting from his forehead, a right arm the size of a semi, a chest as broad as America, and a big, swinging tail clearly meant to underscore Hellboy’s noteworthy virility.

I’m not sure what it is about Perlman, but he has the sort of wit, warmth and personality that can punch through the thickest layers of latex and makeup. Hollywood digs his butch swagger and he easily is the best reason to see the movie.

As directed by Guillermo del Toro (“Mimic,” “Blade II”) from a script he co-wrote with Peter Briggs, “Hellboy” is a presummer blockbuster crammed with so much chaos and disorder, it stands as the most convoluted of the superhero lot.

In its most streamlined form, it begins in Scotland in 1944, where the Nazis have opened a portal into hell that promises to bring about the apocalypse.

They do so with the help of Rasputin (Karel Roden) – yes, that Rasputin – who chants loads of electrified mumbo-jumbo before the entire operation is shut down with the help of armed forces and a British scientist named Dr. Broom (John Hurt).

It’s Broom who finds, protects and eventually rears Hellboy, the satanic child who sprung from hell just before the portal was blown to bits. Now, in the present, Rasputin and his undead army are back seeking another end of the world. It’s up to Hellboy and Broom, along with Hellboy’s pyrotelekinetic love interest, Liz (Selma Blair), a mortal agent named John (Rupert Evans), and several others to end this madness before it fully unfolds.

Needless to say, complications ensue. So do the love triangles, particularly when it’s revealed that John also has eyes for Liz. The movie is at its best when it focuses on Hellboy’s romantic dilemma. Embarrassed by how he looks yet unfailingly in love with Liz, he feels conflicted about how to move forward, believing she couldn’t possibly love anyone who looks as grotesque as he does.

That plotline has been recycled to death in literature and the movies, nevermind the superhero genre. Still, in this otherwise overblown special effects extravagaza, where very little interest or heat is generated by the numbing onslaught of the not-so-special special effects, it does give the film a pulse it otherwise would have lacked.

Grade: B-

On video and DVD

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, directed by Marcus Nispel, written by Kim Henkel, Tobe Hooper and Scott Kosar, 98 minutes, rated R.

Early in Marcus Nispel’s remake of Tobe Hooper’s low-budget, 1974 cult classic horror film, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” a dazed young woman – beaten, bloody and bruised – sits in the back of a van, mumbling about the horror she has just witnessed to the five sweaty hippies surrounding her. When she stops suddenly to pull a gun from between her bloody thighs and blow her head off, the camera, seeking inspiration, follows the slug – and her scattered brains – through the back of her head, through the van’s rear window, and into the heavy open air.

This is one of the film’s lighter moments.

What ensues turns increasingly harsh, ugly and wearying. It’s an exploitative gorefest, a slasher flick that’s merciless in its bloodletting.

Unlike the recent “Dawn of the Dead,” which works because of its dark humor and its cartoon violence, the only goal of “Chainsaw” seems to be to test one’s limits. It’s a misreading of the original, whose blood violence was mostly implied.

The plot follows the bones of its inspiration: It’s 1973, five 20-somethings are returning from Mexico with a pinata full of pot, and they stumble upon the aforementioned lass with the dead eyes who eats her gun.

Her suicide creates a nasty ripple that leads these kids deep into the ugly heart of an inbred Texas town. There, nobody wants to help them deal with the dead girl because, frankly, they would rather be dealing in a little death themselves.

Leading the charge is the sadistic sheriff Hoyt (R. Lee Ermey) – a real pill with eyebrows the size of shrubs – and the chain saw-wielding Leatherface, this time played by Andrew Bryniarski (the original, Gunnar Hansen, lives in Northeast Harbor).

A sideshow of doughy, dirty hillbillies fills out the film’s periphery, adding surreal interest but no psychological depth; they’re here to be ridiculed, not feared. Technically, the film is solid, some of the ensuing chase scenes are well done and the movie does offer one sufficient jolt, but with so much of it a pointlessly grotesque wallow, it can’t help but offend and numb.

Grade: D

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, 5:30 p.m. Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived at RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.