Dorian Griffin
He Transmits, We Receive
How do you see the world? Are you afraid of it? Perplexed by it? Intrigued by things seen both real and imagined? What about the paranormal or the supernatural? Do you believe that there is a world around us and between us, something beyond that which we can see but your belief in it persists nonetheless? Regardless of whatever notions you hold about the world we live in, David Prior’s cult horror film The Empty Man (2020) is here to unsettle you to your core and make you question what you think you know about reality.
The film stars James Badge Dale as James Lasombra, a former police officer turned private investigator who slips down a cult-like rabbit hole of conspiratorial intrigue while trying to find the missing daughter of his neighbor. While The Empty Man might sound like it’s going to be another one of those urban legend/creepypasta horror films meant to evoke some cheap scares but not offer much resonance beyond that. The film, which was promptly buried upon release amidst mega conglomerate cannibalization (Disney-Fox), is a work of shocking ontological interrogation. A hidden gem in what feels like secretly one of the best additions to the horror genre in recent memory, Prior’s film takes inspiration from some of the best. From Wes Craven’s Scream, to Jordan Peele’s Get Out, and most prominently Clive Barker’s 1992 Candyman, Prior isn’t content with merely unnerving the audience through sheer dread, but instead crafts a complex and ambitious metatextual work, one which not only digs into the ethos of the genre but becomes an existential meditation on the human mind and the nature of reality.
The veil between form and flesh
What does it mean for something to be real, for it to be tangible? What if there are things that you know in the core of your being to be true but they cannot be validated as actualities? What then would it take for your perception of the world to be destabilized?
The story goes, if you are standing on a bridge, and you find an empty bottle, if you blow into it and think about the Empty Man, on the first night you’ll hear him, and on the second night you’ll see him, and then on the third night he’ll of course find you.
While the plot of The Empty Man is largely focused on the search for the protagonist’s missing neighbor, Amanda, who disappears along with a group of friends who all turn up dead. You quickly come to discover that what Lasombra is pursuing, is something far more metaphysical and elusive than a living breathing being.
Nearly half way into David Prior’s two hour and twenty minute film, which notably starts out with a spine chilling self contained prelude devoid of any pampering explanation, walks Stephen Root as the mouthpiece for what sounds a lot like culty organization. While the missing Amanda shows some signs of peculiarity the one and only time she sees Lasombra before disappearing, the more we learn about a mysterious group called “The Pontifex Institute” the more her interesting rationale is contextualized. In a rousing one scene performance as Lasombra finally makes it to the location of this institute, Stephen Root gives an incredibly spot on impression as a pseudo intellectual (and potential religious fanatic). Probing his audience to question the systems and ideas which undergird our society, he concludes his speech with an omen that sparks Lasombra’s interest “this message has been brought to you by the Empty Man”.
Did you know that the brain can itch?
Have you ever wondered about the origin of things? Not the universe, or the cosmos, but simpler matters, like ideas? And how groups form around these ideas and then they become dogma?
Littered throughout David Prior’s The Empty Man are numerous interesting symbols and motifs that hint at its enigmatic but central thematic preoccupation. There’s the recurring image of bridges, a symbol directly tied to summoning the Empty Man. With the image in this context suggesting an almost supernatural presence in its association as the entity crosses between “realms”. Outside of the visual motif, there are also thematic references to the idea bridges. After the death of all of Amanda’s friends at school, the chief police detective on the case, demoralized by the sudden outburst of violence in the town, warns of the larger communal implications with these kinds of occurrences. There’s a supernatural undercurrent to how he talks of the events “poisoning the town” as if the encroachment of such terror forms a bridge from which more will come.
The most frequently recurring storytelling device throughout Prior’s film is the traumatic flashbacks that Lasombra faces. He’s introduced as somewhat of a generic horror protagonist haunted by the specter of his past. If that sounds at all flippant, it’s quite the opposite, James Badge Dale, rocking his same slightly menacing smirk from Iron Man 3, gives a career best performance as this walking zombie. While the film plays with this troupe of trauma horror with unknown intentions for quite some time, its ultimate payoff is likely to frustrate some of its audience.
There is only the great binding nothingness of things
For a first time director, David Prior’s The Empty Man is a hugely ambitious swing for the fences. From its prolonged twenty minute opening, to the slow methodical unfurling of its narrative, and its heady philosophical gesturing, the film is truly an attempt at something radical and original. For this very reason upon first glance the ending seems like an underwhelming swerve for such a film. For Prior’s sprawling narrative to culminate with Lasombra discovering he is the new “vessel” for the Empty Man feels like a squandering of the film’s larger metaphysical exploration.
Further reflection suggests that Prior’s last maneuver might have been his most ambitious of them all. The final arc of Lasombra’s character upends not only the audience’s expectations of the story, but disintegrates the protagonist’s perception of reality and his own identity as the Empty Man beckons to him. Like a clarion from the cosmos, the protagonist finds his life and identity transformed, his story now has meaning and a purpose, to be a conduit for The Empty Man.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
