The Empty Man (2020) **

 

The story of this film's creation is almost more interesting, and scarier, than the actual movie. Based on a graphic novel, the film was adapted and directed by David Prior, who started shooting back in 2016. Production was delayed a number of times, due to things like weather and studio politics. Around the time Prior was ready to finish the film, 20^th Century Fox got bought out by Disney, and Prior went through a couple of cycles of being rushed by the studio, then being ignored. He had to rush out a version for a test screening, which went horribly, then the studio tried to edit together their own version of the film before handing it back to Prior. Finally completed, the film sat on the shelf for a couple of years. Disney ultimately released it during the pandemic, and it screened for mostly empty theaters. Audiences and critics alike hated it, and the film seemed destined to die in obscurity. In a year when there just aren't many new movies available, however, the film found an audience on streaming services, and it has become something of a cult movie.

The story is about a detective who discovers a secret cult who worship an entity they call “the Empty Man.” The Empty Man can be summoned by blowing on a bottle near a bridge, and he may be the explanation for the deaths of several local teens. But before all that, there's a piece about some hikers in the Himalayas, who stumble upon a deadly curse.

The problem with “The Empty Man” is that it is really 3 movies, and they don't fit together very well. The first half hour, in the Himalayas, is actually a pretty cool, horror short all on its own. Then they abruptly shift to the story of the detective, and it's a pretty typical, derivative horror flick about teens daring each other to summon a murderous entity. Then it segues into the final section, about a secret cult. This is the most intriguing part, as it delves some into the warped-Buddhist, nihilistic philosophy of the cult, and there's an interesting twist to the story. Unfortunately, these 3 story lines are not knitted together well, and they amount to a run time of 2 hours 17 minutes, which is just way more of my life than this film deserves. I feel like there is a good movie in there somewhere, and director David Prior was never given the chance to piece it together. If he were given the opportunity to come back in and edit this thing, separate the wheat from the chaff, and get it down to about 100 minutes, he might come up with a movie that would leave me feeling less, well, empty.

2 stars out of 5