[Review] The Empty Man(2020) {5/10}

Written, Directed, and Edited by David Prior, the film stars James Badge Dale (James Lasombra), Marin Ireland (Nora Quail), Stephen Root (Arthur Parsons), Ron Canada (Detective Villiers), Robert Aramayo (Garrett), Joel Courtney (Brandon Maibum), and Sasha Frolova (Amanda Quail). The movie is based on Cullen Bunn and Vanesa R. Del Rey's graphic novel of same name published by Boom! Studios.

The plot follows four hikers exploring a valley in Bhutan in 1995. One tumbles into a crevice and falls under some kind of spell, resulting in the deaths of his three friends. Years later, in 2018, a group of teens engages in a ritual in which they blow into an empty bottle while on a bridge, thus summoning "The Empty Man." Most of them wind up dead, hanging under the bridge, but one, Amanda (Sasha Frolova), vanishes. Amanda's mother, Nora (Marin Ireland), calls upon her friend, a former cop named James (James Badge Dale), to help. His investigation brings him to a cult called Pontifex, which worships the idea of nothingness ("nothing exists"). Little does he know that the mystery goes even deeper.

Directed and co-written by David Prior, The Empty Man startles with its extra-long prologue about the four hikers, spending several days with them, developing character, etc., all to end it with a shock. But once all the pieces of the overall story arc come together, it turns out that all that time wasn't particularly important after all. There are some genuinely fantastic visuals, scene transitions and atmosphere‑building. The investigation of the cult is really intriguing as features of it were very close to real cult activities. James Badge Dale gave a superb performance as former detective James Lasombra who is grieving the death of his wife Allison and their son Henry who died in a car accident a year ago. While the police is investigating, James decides to look into the case himself. This long, slow-burn sci-fi tale takes its simple "urban legend" idea into ambitious territory. The movie is, admittedly, beautifully and spookily designed, with fine, unsettling uses of space and sound and is definitely better than the cheap quickies like The Bye Bye Man and Slender Man but, by the time it wraps up, it all makes too little sense to justify sitting through it. "Empty" isn't just part of the movie's title.

The Empty Man is now available on Digital and VOD.