The Empty Man isn’t just your average creepypasta horror flick. Yeah, there’s cults, creepy bridges, and some weird bone monsters… but under all that, it’s about something way darker: how belief can rot your brain, how loneliness can crack your sense of self, and how grief will invent monsters if you let it.
Here’s why The Empty Man shakes you way deeper psychologically than you probably expected.
James Lasombra: Haunted by Grief, Hollowed by Loss
James (played by James Badge Dale) is not your classic horror “hero.” He’s broken. He’s swimming in guilt over his wife and kid’s death, and that’s the crack the horror seeps through. The movie makes it clear: this guy isn’t fighting the Empty Man. He is the Empty Man. He’s being hollowed out by his own trauma long before the cult even gets its claws in him. By the time he realizes he’s basically a puppet, it’s too late. He was empty from the start. The cult didn’t create his emptiness, they just used it.
The Pontifex Institute: Belief as a Weapon
Let’s talk about this cult. The Pontifex Institute isn’t your typical spooky robes and candles cult. They’re scarier because they weaponize belief. Their whole vibe is: “nothing is real, so believe whatever hurts you the most.” It’s psychological self-destruction — gaslighting yourself until you don’t even know if you exist anymore. And it works. Because deep down, James wants to believe in something, anything, even if it kills him.
Tulpas and the Power of Collective Thought
Here’s where it gets super messed up: the tulpa. If you’re not familiar, a tulpa is a thoughtform, a being you manifest just by believing hard enough. The Empty Man runs wild with this idea. The cult believes so hard, they literally create a physical Empty Man… and James becomes the new vessel. It’s a terrifying thought. Your mind isn’t just vulnerable. It can be hijacked. Your own brain can betray you if enough people wish it.
The Empty Bottle and the Bridge: Symbols of Giving In
The whole “blow into the bottle and summon the Empty Man” thing is not just some spooky ritual act. It’s the act of surrender. It’s saying, “I’m ready to let the darkness in.” Same with the bridge. Crossing the bridge is literally crossing into death. Into forgetting who you are. Into being filled with the cult’s ideas because you’re too broken to fight back.
The Empty Man Is About How Easy It Is to Fall Apart
If you went into The Empty Man expecting another Slender Man ripoff, you probably left feeling weirdly gutted. Because the real horror isn’t the Empty Man creature itself. It’s the realization that sometimes, we are already hollow. And when we are, it doesn’t take much, a whisper, a thought, a lonely night, to completely destroy us. Belief can save you. Belief can destroy you. And sometimes, the scariest thing isn’t a monster hiding in the dark. It’s the empty space inside your own head.
