‘The Empty Man’ Review: Best Creepypasta Movie Ever Made
Don’t think it, don’t say it. Wait … that’s a different movie with “man” in the title.
The Empty Man may be a movie you’ve heard of a while ago as it came out in 2020. However, it was one of the last movies that 20th Century Fox produced before they were bought by Disney. It ended up being a big flop despite having a big budget for an original horror movie. Instead of falling away into obscurity, The Empty Man has developed a bit of a cult following.
I heard about the movie a while ago but took me a while to commit thanks to the over two-hour runtime. The title makes it sound like it’s a movie based on a Creepypasta story but it’s actually based on a graphic novel by Cullen Bunn and Vanesa R. Del Rey. From my understanding, the graphic novel is similar in name only. OK, that’s enough preamble, let’s get into the movie itself.
To start things off, The Empty Man has a prologue that’s over 22 minutes long that’s set during a mountain climbing expedition. Movies don’t really have prologues that last that long but it’s honestly the best section of the movie. I almost wish the whole movie was set in the snowy mountains. After the extended prologue, we go to a small town in Missouri and learn about the Empty Man. There isn’t really much explanation as to what he actually is.
We follow James Badge Dale for most of the movie, who is a criminally underrated actor and does good work here. Essentially, the movie is about Badge Dale trying to find his neighbors missing daughter. Along the way, there’s a lot of weird stuff that happens.
Without giving too much away, I wouldn’t say I loved the movie but I did like it quite a bit. There are a couple of standout scenes, especially one in the forest involving weird culty stuff. There’s a lot of tension built up throughout The Empty Man but I didn’t love how it ended. I feel like it explained too much and it didn’t have a great horror set-piece at the end.
It’s a solid horror movie and the best Creepypasta movie ever made that isn’t actually based on a Creepypasta story.
