
The Empty Man
The “creepy cult” subgenre of horror movies has been having a renaissance lately. Films like Hereditary (2018) and Midsommer (2019), both directed by Ari Aster, have breathed new life into a very familiar template. David Prior’s The Empty Man isn’t in the same league as those films, but is a very effective horror movie nonetheless.
The movie begins in 1995 with a group of clueless and entitled Americans hiking through Bhutan, where they stumble upon an ancient evil. Flash-forward to Missouri in 2018, where James (James Badge Dale), a former detective, looks into the disappearance of his young neighbor Amanda (Sasha Frolova). After her high school friends commit suicide, James visits an organization Amanda was familiar with, a Scientology stand-in named the Pontifex Institute. The more James learns about the Institute, the more nefarious the organization appears to be. Even more troubling is that the group appears to know all about him.
Writer-director Prior expertly combines the story’s many locations and disturbing visuals to build an overwhelming sense of dread. The acting is mainly serviceable, the exception being the wonderfully loopy Stephen Root (Barry) as a Pontifex lecturer. The Empty Man incorporates many horror movie themes, but is a creepy cult movie at its core. It doesn’t tie things together as perfectly as the aforementioned films, but it’s a good creepy cult movie regardless. Recommended.
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