This 2020 Horror Flop is Becoming a Cult Favorite, Even if it Didn’t Nail the Adaptation

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It’s easy to underestimate how dedicated true movie fans are, especially those who seek out the latest releases. But real fans, particularly those who love horror, will go to great lengths to find something genuinely scary. Sometimes, they discover a fantastic, little-known film that slowly gains a devoted following through recommendations. That’s how The Empty Man found its audience.

Though critics didn’t like it and few people saw The Empty Man in theaters when it came out in 2020—it only made $4 million worldwide—the thriller found a new audience after it started streaming in 2021. It became a surprise hit, with a growing fanbase calling it one of the best thrillers in years. However, those familiar with the graphic novel the movie is based on might be disappointed, as the two are quite different.

The Empty Man Is An Eerie Mystery Cult Thriller

David Prior’s first feature film as a writer and director is The Empty Man. He later gained recognition for directing a standout episode, “The Autopsy,” of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities. The movie opens with a scene set in 1995, showing four friends hiking in Bhutan’s Ura Valley. During their hike, one of them mysteriously becomes vacant and unresponsive after finding something shocking.

The story really gets going in 2018 when James Lasombra, a Missouri-based security consultant and recent widower (played by James Badge Dale, known from Iron Man 3), discovers that Amanda Quail, the teenage daughter of a friend named Nora (Marin Ireland), has disappeared. He decides to search for her himself, and his investigation reveals disturbing secrets about a cult centered around a strange and baffling local urban legend.

Despite a forgettable title and a plot similar to poorly received horror movies like Slender Man or The Bye Bye Man, The Empty Man’s lack of success wasn’t due to the film itself. Instead, 20th Century Studios (then 20th Century Fox) decided to delay its release for three years after disappointing test audiences. When it finally came out, it didn’t have much promotion, and it was released during the COVID-19 pandemic when many people were hesitant to go to theaters.

Fortunately, this suspenseful thriller became a favorite among audiences, who loved its smart story, consistently creepy mood, and surprising ending. The film also led to renewed interest in the book it was based on, and many readers were shocked to discover how different the story was from the movie.

The Empty Man Comic Has A More “Infectious” Angle

Released in 2014 and created by Cullen Bunn (known for his work on Marvel, DC, and horror titles like The Damned), with art by Vanesa R. Del Rey, The Empty Man is a six-issue graphic novel. While it shares the basic premise of a film adaptation – a mysterious cult worshipping a powerful, otherworldly being – the comic book and movie quickly diverge, offering a unique story of their own.

The story centers on Walter Langford, from the CDC, and FBI agent Monica Jensen as they investigate a terrifying disease called The Empty Man. This contagion is unlike anything the world has faced before, causing those infected to experience disturbing hallucinations and commit violent acts, sometimes even against themselves, leading to widespread panic.

The comic is narrated by Langford with a clever and sometimes beautiful writing style. It feels like a classic detective story, but with the unsettling atmosphere of a cosmic horror tale, much like the works of H.P. Lovecraft. However, it’s Del Rey’s truly disturbing artwork that makes this comic particularly frightening—not just because of what it depicts, but also due to the unusual use of triangular panels that hint at something sinister.

Even people who enjoyed David Prior’s film and then discovered the original graphic novel might wish the movie had stayed closer to Cullen Bunn’s vision. However, looking back, there’s a clear reason why the film had to take some liberties with the story.

The Empty Man Movie’s Creative Liberties May Have Helped It

When The Empty Man came out in 2014, its story about a worldwide crisis and the resulting chaos would likely have been seen as a fantastical horror or science fiction thriller, even without the supernatural parts. However, after the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, the story felt much more like a terrifyingly realistic possibility.

So, this movie’s been a long time coming! I remember hearing about it way back in 2016, after Fox got the rights. They actually filmed it in 2017, but it just sat on the shelf for years. It’s kinda wild to think the director wrote the script not knowing about the whole pandemic thing that happened before it finally came out. He couldn’t have predicted any of that!

I’ve always wondered why the filmmaker didn’t go with the idea of The Empty Man spreading like a weird disease. Instead, he made it feel more like an urban legend – something you hear about as a kid, like “Bloody Mary” or even Clive Barker’s Candyman, and then realize is actually terrifyingly real. There’s this one scene with Arthur Parsons, the cult leader, where he briefly compares how The Empty Man spreads to a virus, but that’s the only connection to that idea. It’s a really interesting choice he made, leaning into the myth aspect instead.

It was probably fortunate that the movie adaptation left out the global pandemic from the original story, especially considering when it was released. While the change didn’t immediately boost ticket sales, audiences likely wouldn’t have been interested in a horror film about a pandemic so soon after living through the COVID-19 crisis. This omission might be the reason The Empty Man eventually became the popular cult classic it is now.

I’ve been thinking about how movies usually stick pretty closely to the books they’re based on, but then you have films like Host – which really captured the feeling of being stuck in lockdown during 2020 – and even the Taiwanese film The Sadness, which felt like it was directly responding to everything that was happening with the pandemic. It’s cool when a movie takes the original story as just a starting point and does its own thing, offering fans something really fresh. That’s what I love about The Empty Man; it deserves credit for taking that approach.

Cullen Bunn and Vanesa R. Del Rey’s graphic novel is a brilliantly crafted, emotionally powerful, and genuinely frightening story that would make a fantastic movie or TV show. Even if David Prior’s very different adaptation becomes popular, the potential to adapt the original story well will always remain.

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2025-11-16 07:41