The Daily Stream: It’s Time To Accept The Empty Man Into Your Life
20th Century Studios By Ben Pearson/Nov. 1, 2021 5:26 pm EST
(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching, why it’s worth checking out, and where you can stream it.) The Movie: “The Empty Man” Where You Can Stream It: HBO Max
The Pitch: After an absolutely killer prologue set in the mid-1990s (more on that in a minute), the story jumps ahead to 2018 and follows troubled former cop James Lasombra (James Badge Dale) as he searches for a group of missing teenagers and stumbles across an ancient cult overseen by a mysterious and terrifying local entity known as “The Empty Man.” After Lasombra engages the Empty Man by saying his name and blowing across the top of an empty bottle on a bridge (heavy shades of “Candyman” there), the man’s mental state begins to suffer as he slowly discovers the unsettling truth behind the cult.
The Daily Stream: It’s Time To Accept The Empty Man Into Your Life
20th Century Studios
By Ben Pearson/Nov. 1, 2021 5:26 pm EST
(Welcome to The Daily Stream, an ongoing series in which the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching, why it’s worth checking out, and where you can stream it.) The Movie: “The Empty Man” Where You Can Stream It: HBO Max
The Pitch: After an absolutely killer prologue set in the mid-1990s (more on that in a minute), the story jumps ahead to 2018 and follows troubled former cop James Lasombra (James Badge Dale) as he searches for a group of missing teenagers and stumbles across an ancient cult overseen by a mysterious and terrifying local entity known as “The Empty Man.” After Lasombra engages the Empty Man by saying his name and blowing across the top of an empty bottle on a bridge (heavy shades of “Candyman” there), the man’s mental state begins to suffer as he slowly discovers the unsettling truth behind the cult.
The Movie: “The Empty Man”
Where You Can Stream It: HBO Max
The Pitch: After an absolutely killer prologue set in the mid-1990s (more on that in a minute), the story jumps ahead to 2018 and follows troubled former cop James Lasombra (James Badge Dale) as he searches for a group of missing teenagers and stumbles across an ancient cult overseen by a mysterious and terrifying local entity known as “The Empty Man.” After Lasombra engages the Empty Man by saying his name and blowing across the top of an empty bottle on a bridge (heavy shades of “Candyman” there), the man’s mental state begins to suffer as he slowly discovers the unsettling truth behind the cult.
Why It’s Essential Viewing
“The Empty Man” is not quite the home run Prior predicts: the story’s gradual revelations don’t always land with ideal impact, and the ending in particular lacks the jaw-dropping quality that it feels like the filmmakers were aiming for. But to continue this strained baseball analogy, the movie is a solid triple. And crucially, it doesn’t just coast off the high of its opening scene. There’s a moment at a campground in the back half of the movie that rivals the opening’s eerie, ominous qualities, and the always-solid James Badge Dale reacts perfectly to a scene of impending doom. Faceless cult members writhing and churning and chasing in unison? Always horrifying.
And hey, any movie that calls Stephen Root off the bench and lets him work some magic for ten minutes playing a smooth-talking cult fanatic automatically gets an extra half-star tacked onto its rating.
