We were promised right off the bat that the huge difference between Neil Marshall‘s Hellboy and Guillermo del Toro’s vision for the franchise was that Marshall’s would be dark, bloody and rated “R,” but we’ve heard that sort of thing before only to end up with a neutered PG-13 movie. Not the case with this year’s Hellboy, as it’s been given a strong “R” rating!

Marshall’s Hellboy, starring David Harbour as the title character, has just been “Rated R for strong bloody violence and gore throughout, and language.”

Harbour himself recently promised, “This movie is gory… it’s like a horror movie. There’s a lot of blood in it. It’s brutal.”

Also starring: Milla Jovovich as Nimue, the film’s villain; Ian McShane as Professor Broom; Daniel Dae Kim as Major Ben Daimio; Penelope Mitchell as Ganeida; and Sasha Lane as Alice Monaghan with Sophie Okonedo (After Earth), Brian Gleeson (mother!) and Alistair Petrie (The Night Manager, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story).

The new story sees the hero squaring off against a medieval sorceress who seeks to destroy humankind.

Aron Coleite worked on the latest draft of a script by Andrew Cosby, Christopher Golden and Hellboy creator Mike Mignola. Larry Gordon and Lloyd Levin and Mike Richardson are the producers. Hellboy is being exec produced by Christa Campbell, Lati Grobman, and Carl Hampe.

Hellboy returns on April 12, 2019.