Horror can be a difficult genre to work in, specifically in film. The production team must fabricate a narrative that is cohesive, interesting and capable of invoking fear without being too obvious or cliche. Finding the balance between all of these elements isn’t simple, especially without overwhelming audiences, and many in the genre struggle to even reach the vicinity of the bar of approval. This doesn’t mean they are bad movies, only that they aren’t great horror movies. Likewise, the opposite can be true: A good horror movie can fail at the simplest tasks performed by other movies.
Such is the case with the horror film, “The Empty Man” (2020).
While the movie is based on a comic series with the same name by Cullen Bunn, it deviates greatly from its source material. Directed by David Prior—most known for “Voir” (2021), “The Empty Man” follows an urban legend as it begins to bleed into the lives of those in a small town. When a local girl disappears, an ex-cop offers to help locate her for an old friend; but, he ends up finding a lot more than he bargained for.
“The Empty Man” caught my attention (and kept it) for a few reasons.
The movie opens with a scene that seems unrelated to the story line: a group of hikers traversing a remote and snowy mountain range. Not only is this introduction unique, but it’s an effective way of confounding the audience and therefore drawing them in. That being said, in order for this opening to be truly effective, it needed to be tied back into the plot later. Unfortunately, the relationship between the introduction and the rest of the movie was weak and washed out. The only thing it ended up adding to the plotline was a partially cohesive account of what this supernatural entity is capable of.
Still, I have to give it credit for its startling opening, and a part of me wishes the movie would’ve continued with that scene in the wilderness instead of moving on to the actual story.
The main issue with the latter is its convolution. In short, the film simply tries to accomplish too many things in its 2:17 runtime. The audience is expected to drop all of their already formed thoughts and feelings pertaining to the intro, and switch to caring about a new main character and all of his issues and trauma. This makes him, as a character, feel unnecessary and passive.
The other characters don’t fare much better. The missing girl who he is supposed to find acts nothing like a small-town teenager. Instead, she basically speaks in riddles and seems far too philosophical and introspective for someone whose brain isn’t fully developed. These out-of-place traits are explained away by the fact that she’s apparently a member of this cult centered around the urban legend, even though the audience is offered no explanation as to how or why she joined in the first place.
The girl’s mother is another frequent side character in the story, as she’s also close with the ex-cop. Her being the girl’s mother should make her more dynamic, or at least, poignant; however, she also falls flat as their mother-daughter relationship is never fleshed out or even really referenced. Her character feels like a blank space that they left hoping it would fill itself; a plot device personified.
While the characters and mismatched plot weigh the movie down, there are a few aspects that keep it from sinking.
Despite the lack of realism in character traits, there’s plenty of reality in the film’s horror elements. The whole movie evokes an all too familiar sense of existential dread that, when coupled with omnipresence of the “empty man,” becomes something truly terrifying.
I also have to applaud the design of the “empty man” itself, as it manages to be both abstract and palpably sinister. Its horrifying nature is amplified by its equally horrifying backstory; how it came to existence solely to prey on those hoping to fill the emptiness left by death of loved ones. Its ease in infiltrating myth and urban legend is also frightening, as it makes the audience wonder how many of their own local legends may be true.
Overall, “The Empty Man” didn’t get a bad score from me, even with all of its flaws. Sure, its plotline was messy and rambling at times, but it was scary, and it was intentional with its scares (something a lot of horror movies seem to struggle with). The story itself was original and captivating, although it sometimes fought to stay coherent, and after it was over, I continued to think about what it had to say.
“The Empty Man” wasn’t what I expected, or what it promised, but maybe that’s the beauty of it.
