phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2021

The Empty Man



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2020
Runtime: 2h 17min
Country: USA, South Africa, UK
Language: English
Genre Tags: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Plot Summary: On the trail of a missing girl, an ex-cop comes across a secretive group attempting to summon a terrifying supernatural entity.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: The 20 minute opening prologue is worth the price of admission alone. Then, what seems like it will be a standard teenage urban legend movie turns into something far bigger and more surreal. I spent a large portion of this movie genuinely unsure of where it was going, and in the best way. For being as long as it is, it also feels a little too short. I would've watched 4 to 6 hour-long episodes of this story. Sidenote: The main character is named Lasombra, which is a bit on the nose.


Outside Reviews:

Brian Tallerico
2.5 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

Most often, studios bury projects like The Empty Man because they're legitimately horrible and they're trying to figure out exactly how to write off their investment in a way that doesn't embarrass them too badly. However, every once in a while, a studio buries a project because they don't get it. How do you sell a film as surreal and unsettling as The Empty Man? You don't even try. If you're lucky, the audience finds it on their own. Will that happen with The Empty Man? It's too soon to tell how people will respond, but I suspect horror fans will be surprised by a movie experience far fuller than I was expecting.


Tres Dean
The Empty Man Is the Next Great Cult Horror Film

The film is not without faults, but they're the sort of faults that hardly seem to matter when weighed against everything it does right. The Empty Man feels like something of a miracle. Horror films of this scale, of this budget, of this raw, unbridled ambition, aren't supposed to get made anymore. It is shocking that it was green-lit to begin with and entirely unsurprising, in a sense, that it was shelved by Disney. This movie is borderline unmarketable, an existential cosmic epic that questions every pillar upon which we've built our perceptions of reality. It is made to be discovered, to find its audience slowly over time.