One place where the horror film has rarely set its cloven hoof is within that of the world of sports. Oh sure, Jason Voorhees sported a hockey mask and there’s been a couple of slashers here and there revolving around some form of professional game; but when you consider the cult-like behaviour various national pasttimes invoke and the fact that some treat their favoured sports like a religion, I’m actually surprised that someone hasn’t taken advantage of this sooner. Cue Justin Tipping’s Him, a movie that takes the cult of personality a couple steps further than someone just painting team colours on themselves and cheering in the rain with their shirt off.
With sports personalities often becoming bigger than the sports they play and creating vast empires using their own face as a brand to be worshiped, Him takes a disturbing peek behind the curtain of a live that demands you stay healthy, virile and fit long after your sell by date has passed. What lengths would you go to in order to remain the GOAT, and what sacrifices would you make in order to climb the mountain, pound on your chest and declare to the world “I’m him!”?
Cameron Cade seems destined for greatness. Groomed from a young age by a demanding father obsessed with taking him to the very top of of the NFL, the young athlete has everything to prove and become just as great as his idol, legendary quarterback Isaiah White, who is rumoured to be retiring from the San Antonio Saviours very soon. However, when it seems that Cade is destined to try out for his favourite team, he’s assaulted by a masked assailant who delivers him a career threatening head injury.
However, bouncing back only the way a future GOAT should, Cade still finds himself in the running despite a swollen brain, a fractured skull and numerous staples holding his ambitious melon together. Knowing full well that a bought of blunt force trauma to the head in his condition could very well result in brain damage, the young hopeful pushes on and soon gets word from his unscrupulous agent that Isaiah White himself has offered to train Cam at his private compound for a week in order to see if the hungry quarterback is worthy to take on his legacy.
Excited to spend the next few days in the company of his idol, Cam is soon intimidated by White’s eccentric, yet eclectic living space and the direct way the football legend does business. However, after being put on a new, mysterious health regime by Marco, White’s team doctor, things start to get decidedly strange. Not only does White’s training regime veer wildly from tough, to downright sadistic, Cam also starts having strange visions as his hero alternates between building him up and gaslighting him into a near-permanent state of confusion. Making it to the top of the heap was never going to be easy, but surely this goes beyond all rational expectations and as the week comes to an end, Cam is about to find out what sacrificing everything in the name of greatness truly means.
There’s a magnificent idea lodged in the proud breast of Him, and at times, director Justin Tipping and producer Jordan Peele get unbelievably close to realising a concept that, in many ways, is treading on virgin territory. The absolute fanaticism displayed by various people when it comes to professional sports is undoubtedly fertile ground for a big, bold and brassy movie – but while some would take the easy shot and aim at the fans, Him chooses the far more flamboyant option and levels off at the unbelievable lengths you would have to go to to be regarded as the best as a player. With conspiracy theories already flying around for decades concerning the sinister upper echelons of power that manipulate the worlds of movie, music and sports, Him really does feel like one of those films that stuns you that someone, somehow hasn’t made it already.
Of course, at its core, it has. Not only has the Faust story been around for donkey’s years, but this very year we got Mark Anthony Green’s Opus, a movie pulled the same, scathing trick with the subject of an iconic, reclusive pop legend. However, while that film kept John Malkovich’s sinister diva as a bizarre enigma, Him uses the equally flashy world of professional sports to bodily drag us to dive right into the psychosis, paranoia and mania that requires you to sell your soul to the thing you love most. If I had to compare, Tipping is aiming to marry the soul sapping egotism of The Devil’s Advocate with the rapid fire, senses-frying style of Oliver Stone’s breathlessly bombastic Any Given Sunday, and while he certainly does generate some powerful imagery and a sense of unease, it turns out that his long game could use a bit of work.
Frankly, it seems that the director has so much to say about his subject, it seems like he’s crammed all of it in instead of focusing on one aspect of it and fleshing it out. Is Him a pumped up conspiracy thriller? A ripped psychological horror flick? A full blown Satan worshiping body horror movie with gore to spare? Tipping’s answer to these questions is an enthusiastic yes and he spends the next 96 minutes using every visual trick in the book smashing all of it directly into your brain. Jittery editing, uncomfortable close ups, unsettling compositions, x-ray shits of brains rattling within skulls; the director strains to get it all up on screen in order to match the ferocity of both the sports and the determination of the men involved.
However, because Tipping simply won’t pick a main thread to run with, a lot of his promising ideas never get to feel fully formed and as a whole, Him ends up leaving scrappy and half-baked that falls back on a blood soaked massacre to snip all of its plot lines in time for the end credits.
Some moments are legitimately fantastic – a scene that sees White punish every missed pass that Cam delivers by launching a football point blank into the bloodied face of some rando stirs up just the right levels of anxiety and the casting of stand up Jim Jefferies as White’s physician is just the right level of weird. But aiding the film immensely is both the performance of Tyriq Withers as Cam who soon realises that instead of making a sacrifice, he may soon be a sacrifice. However, MVP undoubtedly goes to Marlon Wayans who magnificently goes above and beyond the call of duty to portray the deranged White. In fact, it’s on the strength on his performance alone that I’ve given Him three stars as the man most remembered as Shorty from Scary Movie once again gives us a masterclass on just how good an actor he really is (see also Requiem For A Dream for more, highly depressing proof).
A potentially magnificent idea is scuppered by a director desperate to smash as many ideas together as it can like the skulls of opposing football teams and the result ends up being something of frustrating mess. However, thanks to a rousing – possibly career best – turn by Wayans and some particularly potent imagery. Regrettably, this doesn’t stop Tipping fumbling the ball repeatedly which leads to Him getting taken down a sizable distance from the endzone.
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