Rating: 4/5
Oh My Horror 2025 | 18/52 | Cults
Ura Valley, Bhutan, 1995 Greg, Fiona, Ruthie, and Paul hike up a mountain. Greg recognizes a snowstorm coming in at an overlook, but Paul shushes him. Paul hears an intermittent, faint whistle, but no one else hears it. He walks towards the sound, falling into a crevice. Fiona and Ruthie help Greg set up rappelling ropes. He rappels down and discovers Paul, uninjured, sitting in front of a strange skeleton embedded in the cave walls—it looks human-like but much bigger. Greg reaches for Paul to help him up, but Paul finally speaks, only to say, “If you touch me, you’ll die.” Greg drags him out and carries him down the mountain over his shoulders.
The storm intensifies, and they search for shelter for the night. Fiona spots a house over a ridge, and the four pile in, finding it abandoned. Ruthie holds Paul while Greg strips him. Ruthie sees a bejeweled bone in Paul’s jacket. The following morning, Greg and Fiona go out to look for a path down to no avail. During the night, Paul whispers into Ruthie’s ear. On the third morning, they discover Paul missing and footprints leading from the house. They find Paul sitting in front of the bridge they crossed, blowing into a bejeweled bone like a flute. Paul whispers something, and Ruthie draws the knife, stabbing Greg, slitting Fiona’s throat, and throwing them and herself off the cliff. Greg tearfully looks on, playing the bone flute.
Webster Mills, Missouri, 2018 Former detective James Lasombra goes on his morning run. Since his wife, Allison, and son, Henry, died in a car accident a year ago, James is still grieving and unsure what to do with himself. Coming home, he finds his neighbor Nora’s daughter, Amanda, sitting outside. She, too, is grieving the loss of a father, but says she has found something that has brought her freedom: the belief that nothing is real—the belief that whatever we manifest internally becomes our reality—that our thoughts are not our own, but messages transmitted to us.
The following day, Nora finds Amanda missing. On the mirror is a message, in blood, reading, “The Empty Man made me do it.” James leaps at the chance to solve a mystery and be useful. Of course, unimaginable horrors ensue.
Where were you?
The film has a methodical pace—it doesn’t have a tremendous amount on its mind, but it aims for organic worldbuilding. So, it takes nearly 30 minutes for the movie’s plot to kick in, but we’ve already been introduced to so much flavor that we let it unfold. I saw someone compare the directing to David Fincher’s, if that helps give you an idea.
It’s hard to make this movie sound good on paper—it comes across as something like The Bye Bye Man. But this movie is quite different. It doesn’t have teenage scares on its mind, or at least ONLY teenage scares. It has creeping dread and ambiguity, something like Cure or The Ring. It also has the “elevated horror” fixation on grief, but I appreciated how this film used it.
At first, the concept of the empty man sounded like Tibetan Buddhism’s view on thought: what we meditate on is what we manifest. And I guess it continues down that path, but in a more mythical manner and with other occult, eldritch, or continental philosophical accouterments. It sort of acts on the fear-mongering that Christians have done in the past regarding meditation: that if you still the voice in your head, a demon’s voice may enter.
Kudos to the filmmakers for filming a young, nude woman and finding a way to make it communicate vulnerability without leering.
As much as I appreciate what the film is doing, it gets stuck in a couple of tired tropes, which took me out of it a bit. But it doesn’t go on too long.
I can see why someone would give this a high or low score, especially given their feelings about the ending. As for me, it was comfortable and familiar territory, but I had a great time getting lost in it.