The Empty Man is a 2020 film directed by David Prior and starring James Badge Dale, as former detective James Lasombra. The film was marketed as a crime and horror mashup, with a touch of the cosmic, but this frame lacks the depth and precision of what is offered. The Empty Man is a sort of anthropological horror; one that perhaps seeks to ask what is left of the human when the self is fully de-centered.
All else is a spoiler. Go watch it! It’s a spooky one.
The System at Play: From Panic to Infrastructure
During the film’s early scenes, the viewer is shown how teens share The Empty Man, a contagion of both rumor and curiosity. On a long bridge, the kids blow into a found bottle, attempting to summon the supernatural. “On the first night, you hear him; on the second, you see him; on the third, he finds you.” There’s a teen who is excited and open, several who are simply trying to prove themselves, and the few who are entirely resistant but attempt due to peer pressure. A noise is heard and a presence is felt. The kids are spooked.
Then rumor and curiosity shift into fear and social panic. In this wake, the teens behave unusually, skittishly. They feel both uneased and visible. They withdraw, they scream, they chitter, and then they vanish.
In this uncomplicated form, the legend is spread horizontally amongst the youth. Simply blow a found bottle on a bridge, think of The Empty Man, and he will come. The mechanism activates but lacks the nuance for connectivity. Those with the wrong configuration cannot sustain reception because rumor as implementation fails clarity. This destroys the receivers.
The Pontifex Institute streamlines these mechanisms, moving from urban legend to structural fact with clear usage. Focusing on minimization, practices such as breath are utilized as the most reduced form of communication. The Institute is not a cult teaching belief, but instead a school of philosophy teaching receptivity. Receptivity has different requirements.
- Self-observation
- De-centering
- Suspension of Meaning
- Ego-dissolution
- Therefore, Availability or Fulfillment
Blowing on bottles is a basic mimetic component of this larger framework. Successful receptivity requires not the blowing of a bottle on a bridge, but availability produced through conditions 1-4. The bottle blowing sends a signal, but through rumor, the transmitter is likely unavailable. This results in death.
As such, the Institute does not produce doctrine but instead the reduction of noise. Clarity and availability are the goals; a large departure from the urban legend.
Mimesis and Intention
The early film uses mimesis for peer-to-peer spread of the urban legend through social mirroring. Similarly, the Pontifex Institute uses mimetic components, albeit with intention. Both use the same basic scaffolding: think with intention, blow to connect. Both show the elements to teach and spread.
There are two people who are notably beyond mimesis. The first is the opening figure in Bhutan, Paul. Paul hears a sound and follows it to the edge of a cliff. A cliff he reached by crossing a long bridge. Paul blows into the wind matching the sound before falling down a hole. In these depths he encounters a figure, but this figure is nearly a misdirection. The scaffolding was already in place as he was a receiver of the message regardless of the skeleton he encounters in the belly of the hole. The skeleton seems to set the mood, not the framework.
Paul is not a fully viable receiver. He does not exhibit steps 1-4 and therefore is unavailable. But he appears to be somewhat available transmitting the message he receives. As the broken receiver, he experiences noise. This noise manifests as partial clarity regarding both his experience and the danger he represents. In terms of cosmic horror, he is likely the character who experiences it.
Similarly, James surpasses the need for imitation. While he does perform the mimetic transmission of the urban legend, he does not engage in the rules put forth by the Pontifex Institute. There is no chattering, no videos prompting de-centering, he does not chant messages of availability.
Instead, James’s de-centering is thought into reality through time and concentration. The intentional mimesis of others de-center James who is to become the bridge.
“From his thoughts come the dreams. From the dreams come the power. From the power comes the bridge. From the bridge comes the Man. From the Man comes his thoughts.”
Rituals Without Rules
There are a number of rituals present throughout the film – whispering, bottle blowing, and even time to name a few. The film does not prescribe meaning to these, but a pattern still emerges.
Whispering among the teens is socially mediated. It mimics rumors, confession, and taboo. These things are tantalizing and encourage spread. Whispering increases intimacy and compliance while reducing assertiveness, functioning to shape the recipient. However, what is said is less meaningful than the act behind hearing. The process is the meaning.
The film leads the viewer towards believing it’s the mechanism behind teen death. The teens receive a whisper and commit suicide under the bridge; except for Devara who never receives a whisper and still commits suicide. Whispering is not a suicide mechanism. The same logic extends to the Bhutan incident. The whispering is an early act of misdirection and is wholly unnecessary for the resulting deaths.
The message isn’t transmitted through the whisper. This is known because no one whispers to James or Paul and they both receive the message. Instead, it seems as though whispering is part of the ritual designed to condition the receiver.
Blowing into a bottle operates similarly. It removes language, as breath becomes the simplest form of communication, the minimum embodied signal. Bottle-blowing is the signal tie between all the characters who are tried as message vessels. To be direct, it puts the characters on the map. They become visible to the message sender.
Once availability is complete, these rituals disappear entirely.
Prior to discussing time, it is necessary to address the Nyarlathotep in the room. Early on, I suggest this film is not cosmic horror, a suggestion I am slowly building towards, so why are the cultists chanting the name of the famous Lovecraftian beast while rounding a fire in the night? It’s likely an artistic nod to the inspiring source material. This film is not about knowledge shattering the mind, instead it is that insight dissolves the self. The only character to experience both is likely to be Paul.
Time, Identity, and Recognition
Time plays an important, albeit inconsistent, role. The timelines vary widely amongst characters. Some characters blow the bottle and three days later are deceased, others live on to naturally long lives, while others still live past three days but decay rapidly. Time is not a death sentence; it’s a marker for identity coherence.
In three days, it seems one has to be somewhat receptive, exhibiting steps 1-4. I cannot say what degree of completion is both necessary and sufficient. But it seems there should be a slight hollowness. Amanda lived past her peers because she was already deconstructing meaning making, per her conversation with James on the bench. So, on the third day, when “he” came for her, she was already suitable to survive.
James’s three days marked identity destabilization. By the end of three days, he was destabilized, exhibiting a loss of self. This was shown while he was in the hospital room of his predecessor. Amanda claimed they created him in this time, but she did not mean biologically. Instead, they destabilized him in this time, creating him not as a man but as a vessel.
James’s head spins when he calls Nora and she doesn’t recognize him. This is not because he never existed but because the man speaking now did not. He lost his selfhood. Without the self there is no him. James is now just a bag of meat without the stuff of a person inside. Tulpa was successful and only flesh remained.
Thought + Concentration + Time = Flesh
As the film suggests, these people function as radio towers. The towers with an intact self cannot receive the message in full and self-destruct. The towers at some partial capacity receive something and seem to function. James recognizes Amanda, suggesting that her sense of self is still intact. The towers that are at full capacity (empty) can receive the full message.
Paul is not an empty tower. Paul retained enough self to know he was inhabited by a signal and that signal could hurt his friends. In this way, he experienced true cosmic horror. His knowledge did not dissolve his selfhood but instead shattered his mind. However, instead of falling into madness, he fell into optimization. His experience is mixed.
Anthropological Horror: Enlightenment Without Transcendence
The steps 1-4 to become receptive are treated as a form of neutral enlightenment. Enlightenment does not make one holy or divine but instead only receptive. While the followers of the Pontifex Institute bow before Paul and later to James, it is likely an artistic decision, emptiness is functional. It is not moral.
In pop culture, these terms are used to describe reflection as beneficial in moderation. The Empty Man does not describe moderate pop culture. Instead, it is commenting on how these things create a person, with all the magic inside the flesh. Without some selfhood, tentatively defined as: a lack of self-awareness, a little centering, false meaning making, and a bit of ego, we are simple shells.
The identity of the Empty Man can now be clarified. The Empty Man is not the skeleton in Bhutan, nor the cosmic entity, nor any one person. The Empty Man is a migratory role, shifting over time. It is a human-shaped interface, a meat bag if you will. This is the horror of the film.
In Cosmic Horror, the universe is indifferent. Humanity exists as a small link in a large, unseen system. What if the grain of sand understood its role on the beach, near the ocean, on a planet, in a solar system? Only madness can sustain such a known reality.
In Anthropological Horror the terror isn’t the scope of an indifferent universe, instead it is that humanity is modular, full of dimensions and flexibility. This insight dissolves the self. The self becomes optional, and with this comes optimization. A desire to increase self-observation, to de-center, to suspend meaning, to dissolve one’s ego all lead to becoming less. The more one knows and understands this, the more they reflect and ask questions, and the more vulnerable they become.
Humanity thinks itself into non-existence – this isn’t cosmic horror. It’s human.
Conclusion
The horror of The Empty Man is not that humanity is small, but that humanity is adjustable. With reduced interiority, the limiting of the self can rival the expansive horrors of an outside world – the ease of this reduction may be the greatest horror of them all.