Skip to content Mindless scrolling is the lifeblood of the digital age. Apps are designed so that the dependency loop is never broken. It’s one of the many reasons we’re glued to our phones, eagerly chasing the next virtual high. Dan (Jackie Kelly) is no different. Matt Stuertz’s The Man opens with a long segment of Dan silently scrolling through his phone, jumping between apps to entertain himself. On paper, this would be a risky maneuver, but “The Man” pulls off the sequence with confident confidence. For the most part, it works.
Dan is browsing Instagram and comes across a post by Aaron (Jeffrey Decker), a former pilot. He texts her back immediately afterwards, almost as if the two have a telepathic connection. Between the duo’s flirtatious banter over text and the anticipation of a late-night visit from Dan’s girlfriend Christina (Cecil Dowd), we wonder what the source of the terror could be. At this point, the camera zooms out – Dan is not in his room, but on an empty set that is mostly in shadow. Then we hear a thump on the front door.
The anxiety of the moment is instantaneous. “The Man” feels tense and tongue-in-cheek to begin with, but that doesn’t negate the awkwardness Dan feels in the moment. Just when we think the mysterious intruder can be banished, the threat begins to feel supernatural. Dan, of course, relies heavily on his phone to navigate this ordeal.
At one point, the attacker looks so much like Aaron that he curses her over a text. But is it really Aaron? When Dan is forced to open the door, he is met with blood, guts and internal organs spilling out from yet another familiar face. What exactly are we dealing with here?
“The Man” from this point on wanders into brass territory. It’s perfect for those who love gore on screen, as the film makes the most of a single location setting where things quickly get hot, sticky and disgusting. The limbs are exploded with a special small gun, the contents are consumed and blood (among other disgusting fluids) sprays from the leg, which has no end. It’s clearly over the top, maybe a little too much for its own good.
What helps Dan’s senseless behavior. You may not agree with all of his decisions, but he is more than capable of surviving such a nightmare. Kelly delivers an incredibly physically demanding performance that aims to convey the absurdity and horror of a situation where no one can help her. Some points in the developing narrative start to feel off, but Kelly’s presence is solid and grounded enough to help you look past those gaps.
Comparisons to “Evil Dead II” or “Reanimator” are inevitable, thanks to the impressive use of practical effects and the exhausting hog of a very claustrophobic space. This brand of gritty filmmaking is commendable, infinitely preferable to a story that plays it safe. But despite these merits, “The Man” lacks depth, or substance, if you will. It aims to provide a witty commentary on unethical voyeurism, the direct link between surveillance and misogyny, and the isolation we feel in an ever-connected digital age.
Unfortunately, these threads remain half-baked, drowned in buckets and carnage. It wouldn’t be so bad if “The Man” didn’t try to impress with its weak theme line. At 107 minutes, it drags on temporally longer than it needs to, building to a conclusion that’s tonally tiresome and anticlimactic. “The Man” is flawless for horror fans, but its core remains hollow, with very little to say.
