'The Empty Man' an undiscovered horror gem

 

I do a lot of research on film. I watch quite a few, and I've found that there are a lot of bad genre films out there. Every once in a while, I find a film that's unexpectedly good. Such is the case with The Empty Man. Here's a review, excerpted from a future book:

The Empty Man

Director: David Prior

Screenwriter: David Prior  

Cinematographer: Anastas Michos  

2020, 137 min.

Finally! An undiscovered gem. This film, the first feature by writer/director David Prior, is a top-notch horror extravaganza that rings the changes on the classic horror tropes and enlivens them with the bold and intelligent visual drive of the narrative.

The film knows its stuff. It’s a killer script. There’s the trapped in a cabin in a blizzard bit, the steamy sauna, the forbidden ritual, the darkened house, the skeptical observer drawn into another, insane world. It treats the typical horror-film situations, but finds a clever and original and engaging to do so. You are kept on your toes with the movie, as it gets weirder and weirder and weider.

After a mind-bending opening in 1995 Bhutan, the film moves to 2018 Missouri, where a former police officer, James Lasombra (meaning, ominously, “the shadow”), played by James Badge Dale, helps a widowed single mother (Marin Ireland) to find her teenaged daughter Amanda (a great Sasha Frolova), who has disappeared. She has left behind only a message, “The Empty Man made me do it”.

Lasombra investigates, and learns the backstory. A bunch of teenagers, hanging out on a rural bridge, recall the legend of the Empty Man, who will come if you stand on the a bridge, blow into an empty bottle, and think of him. The first night you hear him, the second night you see him, the third night he finds you.

Of course, the kids all do it – and then, of course, all hell breaks loose. James goes to the bridge, blows into a bottle himself . . . maybe not the wisest move. He investigates the Pontifex Institute, which proposes that humankind enter a unitary state that wipes out their problems and all their will. An extraordinary lecture given by Arthur Parsons (the great Stephen Root), outlines the beliefs of a sinister cult that denies distinction between right and wrong and preaches slavish devotion.

Root’s recitation of the mind-numbing philosophy he espouses is a brilliant little scene. It implies that there is a “noosphere” containing all consciousness and numerous realities, He urges submission to its domination. These are devils.

Lasombra pursues them, then they pursue him, terrifyingly. The barriers of reality break down in a Cronenberg-like way, and Lasombra finds himself being proposed as the new tulpa, the vessel for the sentience from another world. “We transmit, you receive” is the ominous chant. It’s all quite farfetched and highly enjoyable. It’s compelling. It has internal logic. It’s a darn good film.