Review: ‘The Empty Man’ a Neglected Horror Masterpiece

Five years ago this week, a film no movie executive knew what to do with was dumped into theaters to die a quiet death. Though it had sat on the studio shelf for three years, its release was abrupt, coming just one week after the trailer appeared on YouTube.

It was the last-ever film to be released by 20th Century Fox, and the movie ensured that the studio that gave us everything from The Grapes of Wrath to Star Wars ended not with a bang, but a bomb. It barely recouped a quarter of its budget and was gone before moviegoers — the few who existed at the peak of the Covid pandemic, that is — even knew it arrived. That is a shame, because The Empty Man is one of the strangest, most original, and most intelligent horror films to come out in years, even decades.

About the Author

Nat Brown

Nat Brown is a former deputy web editor of Foreign Affairs and a former deputy managing editor of National Review Online.

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Five years ago this week, a film no movie executive knew what to do with was dumped into theaters to die a quiet death. Though it had sat on the studio shelf for three years, its release was abrupt, coming just one week after the trailer appeared on YouTube.

It was the last-ever film to be released by 20th Century Fox, and the movie ensured that the studio that gave us everything from The Grapes of Wrath to Star Wars ended not with a bang, but a bomb. It barely recouped a quarter of its budget and was gone before moviegoers — the few who existed at the peak of the Covid pandemic, that is — even knew it arrived. That is a shame, because The Empty Man is one of the strangest, most original, and most intelligent horror films to come out in years, even decades.