Empty Man: El mensajero del último día

Hard to determine if this was a good movie or if I even liked it because I had no clue what was actually happening.

I went into The Empty Man not knowing anything about it. It was dumped out of nowhere and by the looks of the trailer I figured why. It seemed like a teen horror in the vein of countdown, truth or dare, or even bye bye man. But after the first twenty minutes of this film, I knew I was in for something much different. There is some truly chilling scenes in here, and the atmosphere just adds to the sense of dread. Now the climax of the film does get a bit clunky, but I imagine with this being based on a comic series, it's a lot more flushed out there, but even with an almost 2 1/2 hour run time, it felt like more was needed to be explained. Overall I came out of the empty man not feeling empty at all. It deserves an audience.

I basically goes from awesome to a bit less awesome, then way awesome, to wtf. In a nutshell.

A surreal & haunting supernatural horror that's steeped in myth & smeared with pure cosmic dread, The Empty Man is an ingeniously layered & gradually escalating nightmare that ranks amongst the most audacious horror entries in recent years. Invoking an ominous atmosphere from its opening moments and ratcheting up the suspense with terrific use of genre elements, it's a shame that this gem flew under the radar last year.

Written & directed by David Prior in his feature film debut, the film opens with a neatly crafted & downright effective prologue that paves a strong enough foundation for its main story. Prior takes his time with the premise and allows the foreboding aura to envelop the surroundings in a natural fashion and doesn't hurry through the proceedings. Its consistent scares, unsettling vibe, occult elements & existential themes further amplify our interest in it.

Adding more sinister touches to the viewing experience are its clinical camerawork, brooding score, eerie sound design, methodical editing, arresting mythology & disturbing imagery. The first half of the film is top-notch storytelling. It is in the remaining half that it begins to falter a bit and becomes entangled in its own ideas. Performances are convincing, with James Badge Dale aptly articulating his character's confusion, fear & uncertainty about his own reality.

Overall, The Empty Man brims with a menacing quality, is unrelenting in its intensity, and has all the makings of a cult classic, something it is destined to become in the years to come. An impressive start to David Prior's feature filmmaking career, his debut feature exhibits his firm grip on elements of horror & mystery and is anything but an empty cinematic experience. It's the studio's fault that they couldn't figure out how to market this ambitious ontological terror but sooner or later, The Empty Man will find its audience.

I found this to be a Brilliant horror movie, I found it extremely creepy, the big skeleton at the beginning gave me the shivers, no it's not a movie full of cheap jump scares so if that's what your looking for dont bother, it has a slowly creeping sense of dread, dont want to ruin it for anyone but go into it with an open mind as I did, seen some bad reviews for this from critics saying its boring, each to their own I guess, but I personally highly recommend! Hidden gem!