Disney didn't know what to do with it. That’s the simplest explanation for why The Empty Man basically vanished when it hit theaters in late 2020. It was a chaotic year for movies anyway, but this one was special. It was caught in the crossfire of the Disney-Fox merger, a $15 million psychological odyssey that looks and feels like it cost four times that amount.
Most people saw the trailer and thought they were getting Bye Bye Man or some generic Slender Man rip-off. They were wrong.
Actually, they were spectacularly wrong. David Prior’s directorial debut isn't a jump-scare factory for teenagers. It is a dense, 144-minute cosmic horror epic that starts as a snowy survival thriller in Bhutan and ends as a nihilistic meditation on thought-forms and cult indoctrination. It’s weird. It’s long. And it is arguably one of the most ambitious horror films of the last decade.
The 22-Minute Prologue That Set the Bar
Let’s talk about that opening. Most horror movies give you a five-minute kill to set the mood. The Empty Man gives you a self-contained short film.
Set in 1995 in the Ura Valley of Bhutan, we follow four hikers. One falls into a crevice and finds a bizarre, flute-playing skeleton carved into the rock. What follows is a harrowing descent into madness and frostbite. It is masterfully shot by Anastas Michos, using wide lenses that make the mountains feel oppressive rather than majestic. By the time the title card finally drops nearly half an hour into the runtime, you’ve forgotten you were watching a movie about a local urban legend in Missouri.
This isn't just "flavor." This prologue establishes the "Tulpa" concept—the idea that a thought or a belief can be manifested into physical reality through sheer collective will. It’s a Tibetan Buddhist concept that the film weaves into its DNA. If you stop watching after the first act, you’ve already seen a better movie than most theatrical horror releases from that year.
James Lasombra and the Investigation Into Nothing
When we finally meet our protagonist, James Lasombra (played with a weary, grounded intensity by James Badge Dale), the film shifts gears into a noir-style investigation. James is an ex-cop grieving the death of his wife and son. He’s a hollow man himself, which makes him the perfect vessel for what’s coming.
A friend’s daughter goes missing. There's a message written in blood on a bathroom mirror: "The Empty Man made me do it."
At this point, you expect the movie to follow the "investigate the ghost" tropes. Instead, Prior takes us into the Pontifex Institute. This isn't your typical "hooded figures in a basement" cult. This is a slick, corporate-looking organization that sounds more like a Silicon Valley philosophy startup than a death ritual group. They talk about "attunement" and "the bridge."
The dialogue here is sharp. Lasombra isn't scared; he’s annoyed. He treats these cultists like the frauds he thinks they are. But the movie slowly peels back his skepticism. There is a specific scene involving a group of joggers in the woods that is genuinely one of the most unsettling things captured on digital sensor. No gore. No screaming. Just the realization that a large group of people is moving in perfect, silent unison.
Behind the Scenes: The Making of a "Flop"
The history of The Empty Man is almost as tortured as the characters. David Prior based it on the graphic novel by Cullen Bunn and Vanesa R. Del Rey, but he took massive liberties with the source material. He wanted to make something akin to David Fincher’s Seven crossed with H.P. Lovecraft.
The test screenings were a disaster.
Reports suggest that audiences, expecting a 90-minute slasher, were baffled by the philosophical monologues and the slow pacing. Fox (and later Disney) seemingly lost faith. They cut a trailer that made it look like a "don't say his name" teen flick. They dumped it into theaters in October 2020 with almost zero marketing.
Honestly, the fact that it exists at all is a miracle. It’s a R-rated, big-budget studio film that questions the nature of reality and ends on a note of total cosmic despair. Studios don't make those. Or, they make them by accident when nobody is looking.
Why the "Tulpa" Logic Actually Works
Most horror movies fail because the "monster" has too many rules or no rules at all. The Empty Man operates on the logic of the Tulpa.
- The Sound: Blowing into a bottle on a bridge. It’s a call and response.
- The First Day: You hear him.
- The Second Day: You see him.
- The Third Day: He finds you.
But the film suggests that the "Empty Man" isn't a guy in a suit. He is a transmission. He is a signal being broadcast from a dying medium—an old man in a hospital bed who is "transmitting" the entity to the cult. The horror comes from the idea that our protagonist isn't a hero saving the day; he might just be a piece of fiction created by the cult to replace their dying transmitter.
It’s heavy stuff. It’s the kind of movie that requires a second watch to realize that the background details—the way people look at James, the subtle repetition of dialogue—all point toward the crushing finale.
The Visual Language of David Prior
We have to give credit to the technical craft here. The sound design is oppressive. There’s a constant low-frequency hum that makes you feel uneasy even when nothing "scary" is happening.
The cinematography avoids the "blue-tinted" horror look. Instead, it uses deep blacks and sickly yellows. The scene at the camp—where James discovers a massive gathering in the woods—uses scale in a way that feels truly epic. You see hundreds of people, and the sheer number of them makes the threat feel insurmountable. It’s not one ghost in a closet; it’s an entire society deciding that reality should be different.
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Common Misconceptions and Critiques
People often complain about the length. "It's too long for a horror movie," they say.
Is it?
If you view it as a horror movie, maybe. If you view it as a mystery-thriller that happens to involve supernatural elements, the pacing feels intentional. It’s a slow burn that builds to a fever pitch.
Another critique is that the ending is confusing. It’s only confusing if you’re looking for a "how do we kill the monster?" solution. There is no killing the monster here because the monster is a thought. You can't kill a thought once it’s been shared.
How to Actually Watch The Empty Man
If you’re going to dive into this, don't do it on a phone screen while scrolling through TikTok. This is a movie for the dark.
- Turn off the lights. The shadows in this film are intentional.
- Pay attention to the first 22 minutes. Everything you need to understand the ending is buried in that Bhutan sequence.
- Ignore the marketing. Forget the "don't breathe, don't look" taglines. Think of it as a companion piece to Hereditary or The Cure (1997).
What This Means for the Future of Genre Cinema
The cult following for The Empty Man has exploded on streaming platforms like HBO Max and Disney+ (internationally via Star). It’s become the "did you see this?" movie for cinephiles. It proves that there is a hunger for "maximalist" horror—movies that aren't afraid to be pretentious, long, and deeply weird.
David Prior hasn't made another feature since, which is a crime. But he did contribute "The Murmuring" to Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, proving his eye for atmosphere is still sharp as ever.
Actions You Can Take Now
If the film's themes of tulpas and thought-forms intrigued you beyond the screen, you should look into the real-world origins of these concepts.
- Research the works of Alexandra David-Néel. She was a Belgian-French explorer who popularized the concept of the Tulpa in the West in her 1929 book, Magic and Mystery in Tibet. Her accounts are much more grounded but arguably creepier than the movie.
- Watch the "making of" interviews. Seek out David Prior’s interviews on podcasts like The Kingcast. He goes deep into the production struggles and his intent behind the specific "transmission" ending.
- Re-watch with the "manifestation" theory in mind. On a second viewing, watch how James Lasombra interacts with the world. Notice how the world seems to "render" around him as he moves through the investigation.
The Empty Man is a rare beast: a studio-funded nightmare that actually respects the intelligence of its audience. It doesn't hold your hand, and it certainly doesn't offer a happy ending. It just leaves you with the cold, hollow realization that sometimes, the things we think about might start thinking about us too.