The Empty Man (2020) on Netflix
R20202h 17mHorrorMysteryThriller
Former detective James Lasombra, grieving his wife and son, searches for missing teenager Amanda Quail. A friend tells him Amanda summoned the Empty Man, a local legend, on a bridge.
- Netflix2.8/5
- IMDb6.2/1051,584 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes76%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 1995, four friends hike in Bhutan's Ura Valley, where Paul falls into a crevice and Greg finds him staring at a humanoid skeleton and carries him out. The group shelters in a vacant house while a snowstorm closes in, and Ruthie sees a robed figure outside. Years later in Missouri, former detective James Lasombra works in a security store a year after a car crash killed his wife Allison and his son Henry. He looks out for teenager Amanda Quail, whose mother Nora is his friend and neighbor. Amanda disappears, leaving a message written in blood on her mirror that names the Empty Man. Amanda's friend Davara Walsh tells James how Amanda led a group of teenagers to summon the legend on a bridge by blowing into an empty bottle. James investigates the bridge himself.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Empty Man (2020)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Although its marketing used 20th Century Studios branding, The Empty Man was the last film to feature the original 20th Century Fox logo in its entirety, and 2024's Deadpool & Wolverine briefly showed that logo as a tribute.
- When Chicago received two feet of snow overnight, Prior hit pause on the production and everyone went home; during that break Fox's executive vice president of production Mark Roybal, whom Prior called "essential" to the greenlighting of the film, left the studio.
- Following low test scores the studio began panicking over losing a tax rebate from South Africa as deadlines loomed, and Prior delivered a final cut carrying six extra minutes he had meant to cut out, which he later called a rough edit.
- Analysts blamed the low box office on audiences assuming another creepypasta teen horror film like Slender Man or The Bye Bye Man, and on no marketing push: RelishMix noted the social campaign dropped one week out, where a normal one drops at least two months out.
- Prior sent Ken Barthelmey paintings by the Polish painter Zdzisław Beksiński and mentioned the Space Jockey in Alien for reference, and those inspirations eventually led Barthelmey to the film's final design.
