The Empty Man Was Ignored In 2020, But Let It Drag You Into The Depths Of Urban Myth

There was an extended period in the summer of 2021 when Salt Lake City (where I lived at the time) ranked among the cities with the worst air quality on the planet. Due to its geography, you see, SLC Valley is particularly susceptible to inversions, wherein colder, particle-filled air is trapped at the earth's surface beneath a layer of warmer air. Thanks to shifting winds, a blanket of smoke from wildfires in northern California and Oregon had found its way to northern Utah and settled down into its new home that season. As such, residents of SLC like myself spent several days staying indoors, wearing our KN95 masks (which we were stocked up on thanks to Covid-19), blasting our air filters at maximum capacity, and doing our best to avoid breathing too much.

So, of course, this is when I had the terrific idea to spend a Saturday morning watching a little film I'd been hearing about called "The Empty Man."

Loosely inspired by the comic book series created by writer Cullen Bunn and artist Vanesa R. Del Rey, 20th Century Studios' "The Empty Man" was quietly dumped into theaters in the midst of the Covid lockdowns in October 2020. Like most people, I assumed it was because the film was quite bad. "The Empty Man" had been gathering dust on the shelf for years by that point and its trailer didn't do it any favors, painting it as a meat-and-potatoes horror thriller about a broody protagoinst who gets in too deep investigating a disturbing urban myth. Coming on the heels of the similar — and similarly-titled — "The Bye Bye Man" and the "Slender Man" movie (both of which were rigorously trashed by critics), there seemed little reason to pay the film any attention.

Good gracious, was I wrong.

James Badge Dale stars in "The Empty Man" as James Lasombra, a former detective who lost his wife and child in a shocking car accident the prior year. One day, his neighbor's daughter abruptly vanishes without a trace, save for an unsettling message (one written in blood, natch) that reads, "The Empty Man made me do it." Digging deeper, James learns The Empty Man is a malevolent specter who, according to local legend, can be summoned by blowing across an empty bottle on a bridge while thinking of them ... which he, a very wise man, then proceeds to do himself. Seems like pretty standard horror genre stuff, right?

Here's the thing I've been leaving out: James' storyline doesn't even begin until around 20 to 25 minutes into the film. Instead, "The Empty Man" opens in 1995 in Ura Valley in Bhutan, where a group of mountain hikers have a most unexpected encounter. I'm being deliberately vague here because "The Empty Man" is absolutely one of those films where the less you know about what you're getting yourself into, the more exhilarating the actual journey is. This extended prologue alone would've made for a killer short film in and of itself, merging elements of subterranean horror with wilderness survival drama and scares that are unique in both their presentation and execution. 

Some have argued this opening sets the bar so high that the rest of the film fails to match it. But while I can see their point, I have to politely disagree.

Much like the film at large, James' investigation gradually strays off the beaten path entirely. The terms "Fincher-esque" and "Lovecraftian" get tossed around a tad too generously, but suffice it to say "The Empty Man" is the rare thriller that's deserving of both those descriptors. Following its opening, it unfolds as a stylishly shadowy, slow-burn crime procedural that offers many of the same pleasures as "Se7en" and "Zodiac." However, by the time character actor extraordinaire Stephen Root shows up as an eloquent cult leader, it's already taken a turn into dread-inducing existential terror. It only continues to pick up speed from there, on its way to becoming a truly Lovecraftian yarn about the unknowable nature of our lives and the possibly incomprehensible dangers lurking beyond our everyday reality.

You can see why Disney and 20th Century Studios just didn't know what to do with "The Empty Man." Writer/director David Prior — who tellingly honed his craft helming behind the scenes videos for David Fincher films and has since worked on the horror anthology series "Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities" — baits you with stock horror tropes before throwing a sucker punch, revealing that the generic nature of the film's premise is secretly a trap designed to lure you into a false sense of security (paralleling James' disturbing discoveries about his own life). That would've been a rather tricky sell to mainstream audiences under ordinary circumstances, much less at the height of a pandemic.

Approaching three years later, though, "The Empty Man" has all but cemented its status as a modern cult classic and is available to purchase or rent on most PVOD platforms (although it's also popped up on services like Max in the past).

Go ahead. Blow on the bottle. See what happens.