Review: The Empty Man (2020)
Directed by: David Prior
Starring: James Badge Dale, Marin Ireland, Stephen Root
Written by: David Prior
Music by: Christopher Young, Lustmord
Country: United States
Not available on physical media
IMDb
David Prior’s The Empty Man — an adaptation of the comic book by Cullen Bunn and Vanesa R. Del Rey — had the shitty luck to be released under a flurry of bad circumstance. Its original studio, 21st Century Fox, had just been eaten by Disney, other urban legend/creepypasta horror flicks like The Slender Man and The Bye Bye Man had just been released and thrashed by critics, the world was mired in a once-in-a-generation pandemic, and its ponderous 137-minute runtime was a hindrance to its already slim commercial chances. All that together meant the film rotted on a shelf for a few years before being shat into theaters with no hype at all. All very unfortunate considering how good it is.
At its core, The Empty Man is about an ex-cop, plagued by nightmares of his dead wife and kid, who goes searching for the missing daughter of an ex-lover. He runs into strange suicides; rumors of “the Empty man,” a Bloody Mary-type entity that can be conjured by blowing on an empty bottle on an empty bridge at night; and a Scientology-like organization called the Pontifex Institute.
The movie isn’t treading any new ground, but it moves along its somewhat worn trail with a unique, unsettling gait. Horror in the 2000s, especially theatrical horror, has grown so heavily reliant on scares perpetrated by sensory assault — loud noises, sudden movements, etc. But The Empty Man is a film that prefers to examine the fear that percolates in silence and stillness, and the ways your brain tricks your body into terror. Its more subtle and leisurely approach partially accounts for the 2-hour-plus length.
But David Prior’s film is also exploring a complex and robust mythology, and it doesn’t feel long. There are a lot of facets to what the Empty Man is and what he represents, who the players are in manifesting his will on earth, and what his existence reveals about things like free will, grief, and the nature of reality. Sometimes Prior’s script gets perilously close to Philosophy 101 territory, sprinkled with superficial, pretentious musings. And he sometimes struggles with taming the sprawling, tumbling concepts he’s unleashed. But mostly this is smartly written and deftly plotted, if a little timid in traversing its darkest corners. It sometimes feels aimed at teens, but then a moment of sudden, brutal violence or deeply disquieting image will dissipate that thought. But I definitely wanted it to go further.
Adding to its thick, bleak atmosphere is a beautifully perturbing score by Christopher Young and industrial/ambient artist Lustmord that, like the film itself, revels in minimalism and how our senses make space and nothingness their own. This movie is persistently ominous, in no small part due to the soundscape that crawls beneath it all. Hefty, well-rounded performances from James Badge Dale, Marin Ireland, and Stephen Root keep things grounded as the horror goes cosmic and Lovecraftian into a third act that feels a little out of nowhere in its grander, weirder scale, but it complements the fascinatingly pulpy yet brainy luster that Prior’s cultivated to that point.
The quibbles are pretty minor: I think a few additional, select appearances of the Empty Man’s more monstrous form (using practical effects, that is; some of the visual stuff is a little weak at times) would have significantly amped the creepiness. And I could have watched Stephen Root on screen for quite a while more. As the leader of the Pontifex Institute, he perfectly encapsulates the absurdly abstract but vaguely sinister musings these cult figures usually parlay. But regardless of the few things I think could have been tweaked, The Empty Man is very satisfying, particularly for big studio horror. More genre films should have this much ambition and willingness to ignore profitable trends in favor of storytelling flair.
Overall rating: 9 out of 10
