9+ The Empty Man Reviews – Run Time Diarrhea

The Empty Man ⭐️

For a while in the two hour and seventeen-minute runtime, The Empty Man seems content to stretch out its entire feature-length on the simple setup of a formulaic cursed urban legend. You summon it, then three days later, you die. There are no established rules beyond this, nor does the entity itself have much of a presence. Prior is so interested in keeping the Empty Man and its legend shrouded in mystery that the narrative fights to maintain cohesion. Worse, it struggles to fill in increasingly large gaping voids in the plot. It’s a series of different movies crammed into one, all connected by a dreary style and tone that makes its lead sleepwalk through his investigation.

[Review] Overlong ‘The Empty Man’ Fills Emptiness With Boredom – Bloody Disgusting

… you’ve been warned, SPOILERS ahead …

Fitting to keep the critique text to minimum

It says something that a month or so after seeing this, I’ve already forgotten most of it. Some of it returned as I read others reviewing it. The whole thing was a chore to watch, but having decent concepts. Just way too darn long for the story.

Reviews by Others

What do others think of The Empty Man?

Recommended

1. Drink In The Movies: “…isn’t a great film, I’d likely concede in conversation that depending on your preference for cinema it may not even be good film. However I find myself having loved the experience of watching it.”
2. lcook (3.5/4): “Based on the Boom! Studios graphic novels by Cullen Bunn, this film scared the living daylights out of me, with disturbing images, concepts and sounds that are hard to shake.”

Not Recommended

1. King’s Movie Reviews (6/10): ” It’s just shy of being a two and a half hour movie, which is crazy for a movie labeled a horror film, I can’t think of another one with that run length. Even a really scary one, if it’s not a very solid story, it’ll lose peoples interest. This is what happens with ‘The Empty Man’, it’s a great story but not strong enough for the run time. If they trimmed the fat, it would be an amazing film, but it’s about 45 min or so too long”
2. Mirza Baig: “…just overcompensates in every corner resulting in a film that is needlessly long and filled with philosophical overtones, forcing you to question the identity of the audience the film was supposedly targeted at.”
3. Movie Meister Reviews / Lee Butler: “…spends most of the time just running on fumes, it has no good ideas or clever shocks or even any actual horror that’s worth a damn. It just wastes time, I can’t even get the energy to actually hate this movie, hate would imply that it left a mark of some kind and I doubt I’ll even remember this one by the time this review goes live, that’s how boring and useless this movie is”
4. Movie Minutes / Jordan Peterson: “…is the latest in a line of Candyman rip-off’s (Candyman himself being reminiscent of one Frederick Krueger), a supernatural slasher who subconsciously stalks and kills his victims. Despite its similarly stupid title, The Empty Man is a slight cut above such irredeemable disasters as The Bye Bye Man (2017) and Slender Man (2018).”
5. redmangoreviews: “…Slender Man’s cousin, is a strange sort of movie. On the one hand, it has solid acting, an intriguing mystery and some well-thought out scares. On the other hand, it tries so hard to be complex it ends up leaving you with more questions than answers.”
6. Society Reviews (2.5/5): “…flirts with being a solid B film, there are some editing issues such as sound and cutting down on its runtime which would have improved the film’s quality. A film that doesn’t lack ambition simply doesn’t live up to its potential.”
7. Surgeons of Horror: “…we’re armed with a toothpick, the ground is made of wurtzite boron nitride, and the plotline is so tangled in its own web, there’s no saving grace for our protagonist or the audience”

Linked above and wondering what would be cool to do next? Commenting once in awhile is always good (I like reader and other blogger interaction). If you have the trackback/pingback come to your site then just approve it because after people read your review then they can come here and follow links and read someone else’s review. What comes around goes around and sharing is the ultimate “thank you!” on the internet.

Did I miss your review? Use the comments to tell me about your movie-related/review blog and I’ll follow. I like following movie-related blogs and pull quoting from my reading list as well as other new blogs shared, liked and discovered.

Happy movie watching!

The Empty Man ⭐️

The Empty Man – R – 2 hr 17 min
NO SPOILERS Movie Review
Watched in theater Friday October 23, 2020
AMC Kent Station 14 – Kent, Washington
#39 new movie seen in theater in 2020

Four young adults are hiking in the mountains and cross a bridge that we expect to collapse, sending them to their deaths, but that’s just a set piece for the moment. Instead, one walks away from the group and falls down a chamber inside the rocks.

His friend rappels down and finds him sitting cross legged and trance-like staring at this spooky-looking human-creature skeleton, telling his friend “touch me and you’ll die.”

Being a horror movie, of course he’s going to ignore this warning, helping him out of the cave and trying to carry down the mountain, only to get tired. With weather worsening, they stay in a lodge near the bridge. Inside there, they try to figure out what’s wrong with their friend.

That’s just the beginning and it is kind of intriguing but turns out this is just a prologue to the real story which is a retired police officer turned private eye investigating the disappearance of a young woman. There’s another bridge scene and viewers are treated to a cult-like fascination with bridges, death and a mythical creature known as The Empty Man.

Oddly, The Empty Man likes to pattern his ghostly behavior on Charles Manson’s penchant for leaving messages at crime scenes. Only they aren’t witchy, they are more obvious like, “The Empty Man was here!”

This movie suffers — badly — from way too much lore, exposition and backstory. While it’s based on a graphic novel — and no, I haven’t read it — this isn’t exactly Lord of the Rings. It also is a victim of excess runtime. The story isn’t as complex as it wants to be, and yet it’s approaching 2.5 hours?!? That’s too long for, once stripped down, a pretty basic horror story.

We never get to know any characters that well except for the detective and even his characterization is thin. Instead, we’re focused on who or what is The Empty Man. At some point viewer fatigue sets in with too much mystery without action. It doesn’t have to be a nonstop killathon, but we need plot twists, turns, something, besides, hey, that’s kind of weird behavior.

The biggest problem here is that it simply isn’t scary. It’s loud and has some very cliched jumpscares, but spooky lore and skeletons by themselves aren’t scary. Not that The Empty Man needed to go all Freddy Kruger or Jason Vorhees, but the shadowy figure doesn’t deliver enough of any personality to be scary. I guess that’s the point, it’s “empty” … but empty isn’t scary. Empty can be eerie, like go watch The Twilight Zone’s debut episode (see: TV SERIES Review: The Twilight Zone (1959) S1E1 – Where is Everybody?½ (#1 of 156)) but not even that level of awesomeness could hold a viewer beyond 30 minutes.

We were checking our clocks in the theater multiple times past the hourly mark, which had us contemplating leaving before it finished, but we pushed through and got to the end, which, unfortunately, didn’t redeem anything. The story is largely boring, not horrifying and neither of us could find much good to say, except that it wasn’t the worst horror movie we’ve seen in 2020.

Just leaving the theater, we discussed the horror of how bad it was versus it being horrifying. It’s a sad statement when Kara who generally dislikes horror films liked this more than me who loves all things horror. Loves good horror films, that is, which this one isn’t.

Rating (out of 5 stars): ½ (Todd) ⭐️ (Kara)

Opening 10-23-2020 in Theaters: The Empty Man

The Empty Man: 10/23/2020

Wednesday, week #43 of 2020 (10/23-10/25/2020)

Only one new movie this weekend to see in theaters, unless others drop unexpectantly. Last week that happened with The Kid Detective having a limited release.

Let’s get to that solitary wide theater release.

The Empty Man
[FIRST LOOK]

Since posting that FIRST LOOK the first official trailer has been posted:

Haven’t read any of the comic books its based on, but the basic premise sounds entertaining. Right now any sort of virus or communicable disease is going to have a special interest — or maybe not. Maybe some (many?) will have fatigue for these type of stories because they remind too much of the ongoing pandemic.

I’m hopeful this will be one of the better movies we’ve seen since the theaters reopened. It has potential.

Anticipation: 7/10

Are you looking forward to seeing? Wherever you are watching movies, happy watching to you!

FIRST LOOK: The Empty Man (2020)

FIRST LOOK Friday continues with …

Hey, it’s a horror movie coming in August, maybe, to theaters. At least it hasn’t been delayed as of this writing, so I’m bravely previewing it. The film was announced first in 2016 and has taken a leisurely path to release. It hasn’t had a bunch of delays and moves, however, so maybe — assuming theaters are back open next month — will release as currently planned.

What’s it about?

A terrifying entity may be responsible for a string of mysterious disappearances in a small Midwestern town.

Everything You Need to Know About The Empty Man Movie (2020)

I couldn’t locate an official trailer for this film from 20th Century (now owned by Disney), but it is based upon the Boom Studios comic by Cullen Bunn. Haven’t read the comic, but do like the story description:

…a dystopic version of the world we know, where a terrifying disease has taken on almost deific connotations. The cause is unknown, and the symptoms include fits of rage, hideous hallucinations, suicidal dementia, followed by death, or a near lifeless, “empty” state of catatonia. As cults rise nationwide, the FBI and CDC enter a joint investigation of the Empty Man, hoping to piece together clues to stop the cults and uncover a cure … THE EMPTY MAN comic book series delivers terrifying new horrors, perfect for new readers and longtime fans alike,

The Empty Man #1 First Look – Boom Studios!

As of this writing the comic series first 6 issues are available for $9.99 at Google Play (regularly price buying each issue separately costs $18, so better deal to buy the volume 1 series). I haven’t read the series, just reporting one place you can find the series at. I didn’t check any other sources than Google Play, so maybe Comixology has as part of their unlimited deal. Subscribers should always check there first.

I’m interested in reading this comic series and seeing the movie. I don’t know if I’ll have time to do it before the movie comes out, though. More and more movies these days are being adapted from comics and graphic novels.

The Empty Man as of this writing is scheduled to open wide in theaters on August 7, 2020.