By 
Him (2025)
Greatness demands sacrifice.
There’s something compelling about a horror film that feels both familiar and strange, as if the genre’s tropes are being gently bent rather than smashed. Him, produced by Jordan Peele and helmed by Justin Tipping — who co-write the script with Skip Bronkie and Zack Akers — lands squarely in that space. It doesn’t wholly reinvent the wheel — but spins it with enough style, purpose, and confidence to make the ride worth taking.
At the center is Cameron “Cam” Cade (Tyriq Withers), a rising quarterback whose career is nearly ended when he’s violently attacked on the eve of the NFL Combine, suffering a traumatic brain injury. Just when all seems lost, he’s thrown a lifeline by his idol: Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), a legendary quarterback nearing retirement, who invites Cam to train at his remote desert compound.
But beneath the surface of this promised rebirth lie brutal trials — punishing drills, masked followers, unsettling visions, and strange blood transfusions disguised as performance aids — all part of a larger mythology that blurs the line between faith, ambition, sacrifice, and what it truly means to become “great.”
From a genre standpoint, Him doesn’t reinvent the wheel. The building blocks are familiar: masked figures, invasive procedures, ritualistic bloodletting, and hallucinatory breakdowns. But what elevates it above formula is the confidence of its execution. Rather than leaning on horror tropes for shock value, director Justin Tipping uses them to cultivate atmosphere and explore character. The film’s dread is patient and psychological — a slow erosion of identity, ambition, and bodily autonomy that leaves a deeper mark than any jump scare.
The casting is solid. Tyriq Withers carries the film with a quiet desperation and vulnerability: Cam is ambitious, but also wounded — physically and emotionally — and Withers navigates that vulnerability well. Marlon Wayans, casting against many expectations in this space, leans into the mystique of Isaiah White with charisma and menace. He’s not just a villain; he’s a tempter and mirror, a possible future version of Cam if ambition were to consume him. Julia Fox, as Elsie, Isaiah’s wife and social media figure, adds a sharp edge: she isn’t powerless or decorative. Tim Heidecker as Cam’s manager / agent provides a grounding counterpoint, someone operating in the real world as the compound’s madness encroaches. And Jim Jefferies, as Marco — the team doctor — brings a welcome touch of uneasy humor, straddling the line between comic relief and something more unnerving.
Blood, sweat, and … blood again.
Justin Tipping’s direction does a commendable job balancing the world of football — and all its physical stakes — with creeping horror. The film visually sells its abstraction without tipping over into pure camp. Cinematographer Kira Kelly gives Him a texture that oscillates between lustrous, sun-bleached sports montage imagery and uncanny, washed-out interiors where shadows stretch and figures loom. The transition from athletic vitality to ritualized horror is often seamless. In many horror films, such juxtapositions might feel jarring; here, they feel almost inevitable.
It’s in the design of Isaiah’s compound, the masked cultist crowds, the shots of blood, the silent gazes, and the layering of religious and occult symbolism where Him mostly shines. Even when the story feels stretched thin, the film remains compelling through the strength of its visuals. One sequence recalls The Last Supper in its staging; elsewhere, athletes are elevated like gods on pedestals. The team Isaiah plays for is called the San Antonio Saviors. There may be too many invocations of “sacrifice,” but enough of them resonate to give the narrative weight. The imagery, in many scenes, is lingeringly haunting.
Thematically, Him is preoccupied with the cost of greatness, the commodification of athletes, and the way fandom can curdle into fanaticism. It poses questions about what is lost in the relentless pursuit of excellence — about the sacrifices demanded when body, mind, and soul are devoted entirely to a singular goal. In this narrative, greatness is not merely symbolic but literally biogenetic and occult, mediated through lineage and blood. The culture of football — with its injuries, rites of passage, and glorification of violence and pain — becomes a metaphorical screen for broader meditations on faith, identity, and destiny.
The heaviest weight here isn’t the bar — it’s the expectations.
There are moments in the middle where the plot’s logic frays a bit. Some of the attack sequences feel arbitrary. The rules of when Cam is hallucinating or being manipulated are opaque. And there are stretches, especially in the buildup, where one suspects the film is treading familiar ground — mentorship turning monstrous, ritual masquerading as self-improvement. Even so, the payoff is strong enough to sustain momentum and maintain engagement through to the end.
Without spoiling specifics, the climactic revelation — that Isaiah’s lineage and the control over Cam’s so-called “destiny” are more manufactured than earned — lands with considerable impact. The final scenes push the film into an operatic register, where violence, horror, and metaphor converge with real force. The ritual, the blood, the contract signing — all of it — culminates in a visceral, unsettling, and thematically resonant payoff that lingers well beyond the credits.
If Him has a weakness, it’s that it sometimes wears its metaphors too plainly and leans a bit too heavily on familiar horror archetypes — masked, pig-headed figures, occult symbolism, and hallucinatory visions. Yet, it never feels lazy. Tipping and his team show real care in the visual storytelling, and the cast keeps the stakes grounded in a way that feels authentic. Ultimately, the film is more about what’s between the lines than the lines themselves.
When they said ‘be the GOAT,’ he took it literally.
In short: Him is a solid, if not groundbreaking, horror film. The leads are capable and compelling, and the director shows promise, particularly in blending the athletic with the uncanny. The imagery often elevates what could’ve been thin scaffolding, and while the story is somewhat predictable in its beats, the final act delivers a reckoning that lingers. It’s not perfect, but for fans of elevated horror with heart and muscle, Him is well worth your time.
3.5 / 5 – Great
Reviewed by Dan Cachia (Mr. Movie)
Him is currently streaming on Universal Pictures Australia
