I recently watched, The Empty Man, and I have some thoughts. First off, the trailer is a little misleading. It makes the movie look like one of those urban legends, supernatural killer-type movies. In a way, that’s not wrong; however, this movie is so much more than just that trope. This movie solidly falls into cosmic horror.
I’ll first give you some general, non-spoiler-filled thoughts. Then I’ll move into a spoiler-filled section where we can discuss some of the finer points of the film.
The film was released in 2020, and somehow, I missed it. I’m guessing it got lost in the pandemic craziness or something similar. The film was directed by David Prior and starred many folks I wasn’t familiar with other than Stephen Root, who has a very small part in the movie. However, everyone did a great job acting, and I have to say the production quality of this movie was excellent.
The official synopsis is:
On the trail of a missing girl, an ex-cop comes across a secretive group attempting to summon a terrifying supernatural entity.
I’ll first give you some general, non-spoiler-filled thoughts. Then I’ll move into a spoiler-filled section where we can discuss some of the finer points of the film.
The film was released in 2020, and somehow, I missed it. I’m guessing it got lost in the pandemic craziness or something similar. The film was directed by David Prior and starred many folks I wasn’t familiar with other than Stephen Root, who has a very small part in the movie. However, everyone did a great job acting, and I have to say the production quality of this movie was excellent.
The official synopsis is:
On the trail of a missing girl, an ex-cop comes across a secretive group attempting to summon a terrifying supernatural entity.
Simple enough, right? And yes, that is pretty much the gist of it. However, the longer the movie plays, the more complex this story gets, and let me tell you, this movie goes on for a long time. The run time is two hours and seventeen minutes, which is a long time for a horror film. About twenty minutes of this film is in the prologue, which runs for almost twenty minutes and follows a group of hikers in Bhutan that come across a monstrous-looking skeleton nestled in a crevasse.
After that, we meet the main character, James Lasombra, played by James Badge Dale. Right off the bat, they portray Lasombra as living alone, working at a security/lock shop, and dealing with some past trauma as he is shown taking anti-depressants, and you catch a snippet of memory/flashback of his wife and child in a car. You can guess what happens. I found the choice of character name interesting because, in Spanish, La sombra means “the shadow.” The Shadow knows…
The movie jumps in pretty quick with the mystery as the next-door neighbor girl ends up missing. The girl talked with the main character the day before, and given that Lasombra is an ex-cop, he decides to help out the mom (who the film teases has some sort of shady background with Lasombra anyway). Not to spoil anything, but his investigations lead him on a long, crazy journey that introduces him to the concept of the Empty Man. According to legend, if you blow on an empty bottle on a bridge and think about the Empty Man, he’ll show up in three days. His investigation leads him through a lot of weird twists and turns, ending with some dark discoveries.
Overall, The Empty Man is a good flick. I love the cosmic horror aspect of it and even some revelations (more on that in the spoiler section). However, I think the film is a bit long, plus it is misleading with what the trailer portrays the movie to be with what it ends up being. In other words, the film has a bit of identity crisis and leaves a lot of questions at the end. For that reason, I give this movie a 4/5 instead of 5/5.
Now, for the spoilers. Leave now if you don’t want to know.
Overall, The Empty Man is a good flick. I love the cosmic horror aspect of it and even some revelations (more on that in the spoiler section). However, I think the film is a bit long, plus it is misleading with what the trailer portrays the movie to be with what it ends up being. In other words, the film has a bit of identity crisis and leaves a lot of questions at the end. For that reason, I give this movie a 4/5 instead of 5/5.
Now, for the spoilers. Leave now if you don’t want to know.
The movie starts out with the four friends hiking in Bhutan, as I mentioned above. This takes place like 20+ years before the main story. One of the hikers hears something like a hollow whistling (i.e., blowing into a bottle), and as he tracks the source, he falls into a crevasse. One of the other hikers goes down to help his buddy but finds him sitting cross-legged in front of some crazy-looking skeleton that is more monster than human. He is in a state of shock and unresponsive. They get him out of the crevasse and begin to haul him down the mountain, but a storm causes the hikers to seek shelter in a nearby cabin they find. While at the cabin, one of the hikers begins to see things in the storm (a massive figure in flowing, tattered, black robes). At one point, they can’t find the unresponsive hiker but see his tracks leading down to a huge footbridge that spans across a canyon. The hiker, who was seeing things, produces a knife and kills the other two before jumping off the cliff, leaving the unresponsive hiker sitting at the bridge.
So, during Lasombra’s investigation, he ends up finding not only did the neighbor-girl go missing but all of her friends as well. All of the friends he can investigate has ties to a place called the Pontifex Institute. When Lasombra shows up there, he finds the institute is basically a cult trying to communicate with entities from other dimensions, one of which is the Empty Man. He also discovers the institute believes they can summon or manifest things into reality by concentrating hard enough. These manifestations are called, Tulpas. (Some believe Tulpas are real…you can look it up if you like).
During his investigation, we get more of the cosmic horror angle coming from his discoveries. He eventually ends up at a hospital where there is a man in a vegetative state. Members of the institute “worship” this comatose man, and Lasombra finds out the man has been in a coma for 23 years and moved around from facility to facility. Of course, this man is the hiker from Bhutan.
Lasombra eventually finds the missing neighbor girl with the man in the hospital. She reveals that Lasombra is a Tulpa, created three days ago to be a vessel for the Empty Man since the hiker’s body is falling to the strain of holding the Empty Man now. Of course, Lasombra thinks it’s bullshit, but the girl can tell him all the essential details of his past, and when he calls the girl’s mother, she acts like she’s never heard of Lasombra. Lasombra returns home and finds it is empty, void of all belongings and furniture.
Now going off the deep end, Lasombra gets a gun and heads back to the institute. While there, he runs into the Empty Man, who basically enters Lasombra’s body. During this scene, the Empty Man takes on a different form from what we’ve seen so far. He looks surprisingly a lot like H.P. Lovecraft’s Nyarlathotep, which I found was a neat nod.
So, during Lasombra’s investigation, he ends up finding not only did the neighbor-girl go missing but all of her friends as well. All of the friends he can investigate has ties to a place called the Pontifex Institute. When Lasombra shows up there, he finds the institute is basically a cult trying to communicate with entities from other dimensions, one of which is the Empty Man. He also discovers the institute believes they can summon or manifest things into reality by concentrating hard enough. These manifestations are called, Tulpas. (Some believe Tulpas are real…you can look it up if you like).
During his investigation, we get more of the cosmic horror angle coming from his discoveries. He eventually ends up at a hospital where there is a man in a vegetative state. Members of the institute “worship” this comatose man, and Lasombra finds out the man has been in a coma for 23 years and moved around from facility to facility. Of course, this man is the hiker from Bhutan.
Lasombra eventually finds the missing neighbor girl with the man in the hospital. She reveals that Lasombra is a Tulpa, created three days ago to be a vessel for the Empty Man since the hiker’s body is falling to the strain of holding the Empty Man now. Of course, Lasombra thinks it’s bullshit, but the girl can tell him all the essential details of his past, and when he calls the girl’s mother, she acts like she’s never heard of Lasombra. Lasombra returns home and finds it is empty, void of all belongings and furniture.
Now going off the deep end, Lasombra gets a gun and heads back to the institute. While there, he runs into the Empty Man, who basically enters Lasombra’s body. During this scene, the Empty Man takes on a different form from what we’ve seen so far. He looks surprisingly a lot like H.P. Lovecraft’s Nyarlathotep, which I found was a neat nod.
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After this happens, Lasombra returns to the hospital and kills the hiker. When he steps out into the reception area, all the hospital workers stop what they are doing and stare at him. Then as one, they drop to their knees and worship Lasombra as the vessel for the Empty Man.
So… my biggest issue with the film is at this point. If Lasombra is a Tulpa like neighbor girl says, how do we see him interacting with the mom in earlier scenes? How do we see him living in his home full of his possessions? What about his place of work? Were all of those hallucinations? It doesn’t make sense to me. But, that being said, it was still a good movie, and I enjoyed it.
So… my biggest issue with the film is at this point. If Lasombra is a Tulpa like neighbor girl says, how do we see him interacting with the mom in earlier scenes? How do we see him living in his home full of his possessions? What about his place of work? Were all of those hallucinations? It doesn’t make sense to me. But, that being said, it was still a good movie, and I enjoyed it.
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