‘Him’ Review: Obnoxious and Vapid Football Horror Fumbles the Ball at Every Play
I can't believe I waited nearly a decade for Justin Tipping’s second feature film. I remember seeing his first flick and calling card, the fun and stylistic coming-of-age hood caper Kicks, at the long-gone Bow Tie Cinemas during the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. Ten years later, he hops on the elevated psychological horror bandwagon with Him, a Jordan Peele-esque flick produced by Peele about a rising football star who trains with a legendary football player star/his idol in the midst of being drafted for his dream team. Although I was anticipating Him, I was ultimately disappointed. Though it promised to be a smart sports horror movie (a rarity), it fumbles the ball at every play.
Image copyright (©) Courtesy of Universal Pictures
MPA Rating: R (for strong bloody violence, language throughout, sexual material, nudity and some drug use)
Runtime: 1 Hour and 36 Minutes
Language: English
Production Companies: Monkeypaw Productions
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Director: Justin Tipping
Writers: Skip Bronkie, Zack Akers, Justin Tipping
Cast: Marlon Wayans, Tyriq Withers, Julia Fox, Tim Heidecker
U.S Release Date: September 19, 2025
On the eve of a football scouting combine, rising football prodigy Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers) is attacked and suffers a brain injury, threatening the football future his late dad groomed him for since childhood. That's until legendary quarterback and Cameron’s idol Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans) comes a-calling. He offers to train Cam for a week at his rural, isolated compound in the western desert. Framed as a different lesson every day, Cam’s training progresses from fun to toxic as he faces White's fanatics, disturbing antics, and more.
Him looks like every Monkeypaw production (complimentary and derogatorily)
Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers) in HIM, directed by Justin Tipping.
© 2025 Universal Studios
In Him, Tripping flexes his stylistic knack for injecting surrealist imagery into the chaos that ensues in the foreground, which was one of Kicks' major highlights. At Isaiah’s compound, Tripping maintains his established style while making some intriguing creative visionary choices, such as the use of an infrared lens during violent sequences, forced perspective of Cam in his helmet, and atmospheric lighting. However, those aspects are mostly brief as Tripping adheres to a Monkeypaw look, which I can't believe I now have to describe as a thing. It makes sense that people would mistake this for a Jordan Peele-directed movie because it shares those extreme close-ups of unsettling behavior shot with a similar style, composition, and editing as other Monkeypaw flicks like Peele's Us and Get Out over even Nia DaCosta's Candyman.
Him lacks a Black voice to elevate its undeveloped themes
Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans) and Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers) in HIM, directed by Justin Tipping.
© 2025 Universal Studios
The story of a Black rising talent from a younger generation undergoing violent training at the hands of the GOAT in his field has the potential for nuance, especially given the horror angle. There's a soullessness to football and the players’ lifestyle that stems from the fact athletes can expect to be mistreated and discarded when they get older. Him settles for being a copy of Whiplash in the style of Get Out, but doesn’t have an iota of the intelligence or horrifying elements to invest in. All the while dipping its toes in the umpteenth conversation about toxic Black masculinity that was in desperate need of a Black voice — Tipping is of Filipino and Scandinavian descent and co-writers Skip Bronkie and Zack Akers are white— looking as weird as Trey Edward Shults’s Waves. I don’t take umbrage at Bronkie & Akers, who sold their spec script originally titled GOAT to Monkeypaw only for Tipping to "Black it up" (every use of the n-word felt so disingenuous if not startling) in a major rewrite.
Returning to the Black masculinity part: In the beginning of the movie, Cam, who is only a toddler, watches Isaiah White's highlight reel with his dad, who tells him, "That's what real men look like." Two decades later, he has grown to become a horse of the sport, trained by his father to become the ultimate star football quarterback. However, he is emotionally stifled. In numerous brief scenes, Tyriq Withers presents a harrowing portrayal of the vulnerability of losing one's childhood and identity when tragedy strikes.
Tipping’s script is actively at war with itself and the original writers, where it can't decide whether it wants to tell of Black masculinity or exploitation or sacrificing oneself for the love of the game. Its themes and characters are executed in a manner that is both blatant and vapid. Even its bloody, gory climax that finally introduces a racial theme and a supernatural element strives to be triumphant but falls flat. Him, like this year's Opus, wants to discuss the issues of fame and glory but lacks real conviction, commentary, or understanding of the horror genre to give its contribution to the conversation weight. Plus it diminishes the effort of its central actors.
Fine actors in need of a better script
L to R: Tyriq Withers is Cam and Julia Fox is Elsie in HIM, directed by Justin Tipping.
© Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
The moment he enters Isaiah’s compound, Cameron is pushed to the back burner, becoming a reactive puppet rather than an active part of his own story, squandering Tyriq's potential for a star-turning performance.
Try as Marlon Wayans might — and he does, delivering his career-best performance since White Chicks (I was going to say Requiem for a Dream, but let's be real) he is never a believable threat. Instead, he acts more like a schizophrenic chaos agent. He's sincere at one point and a tormentor the next, but he’s never seen as a person. At times, it appears like he's impersonating a circa 2018 of Kanye West. Funny to say, Julia Fox is also here and, as always, is a genuine delight for what little screentime she has. Girl has nearly five minutes of screentime and exudes more charisma and personality by pretty much playing Julia Fox than either of her costars.
As much as I would like to give Him the benefit of the doubt, it's evident that horror is not Tipping’s forte. Maybe I've grown numb to this style or even to seeing Black men depicted in film succumbing to disturbing rage, but Him lacks any organic sense of tension, dread, uneasiness, fright or creative horror ideas. It peaks fairly early with a scene where Isaiah is running throwing practices with Cam, making him throw a ball in a 3-second shot clock or a "free agent" will be shot in the face with a football at high speed. It is a brutal showcase of horror and masculinity in the sport, but it was clearly not meant to be the apex of the movie.
Final Statement
Fumbling the ball on every front, Him is an obnoxious and vapid Peele-wannabe sports horror with little on its mind and nothing in its soul.
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