Him, Justin Tipping’s latest feature, uses a horror-thriller frame to scrutinize America’s fixation with football and the business that surrounds it. Tyriq Withers stars as Cameron Cade, a disciplined athlete with a shot at a fictitious national league that is not the NFL. While training alone on a deserted field, a mysterious force appears and lands a blow that could derail his career. Motivated largely by his desire to please a dead father who bullied him into believing toughness defines manhood, Cade pushes through the injury and accepts an invitation to spend a week at the remote desert compound of his idol, quarterback Isaiah White, played by Marlon Wayans. White’s mentorship is a shield and a trap; the desert setting becomes a testing ground where strange drills unfold and Cade’s grip on reality begins to slip.
From the start, the film frames football as a religion run in large part by white men; Cade’s world revolves around a sacred football culture, with his family and peers treating the game as religion. The Saviors, the fictional team White supposedly represents, underscores the idea of a fandom and a corporate enterprise fused into a single, coercive system. The screenplay by Tipping, Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie leans into explicit messaging, but it is anchored by some stylistic touches that hint at Tipping’s craft. A standout visual motif is a sequence in which a head-to-head collision is rendered as X-ray vision — two brains as blurry blobs behind skulls — an unnerving image that underscores the physical cost of the sport.
Withers gives Cade a winsome, determined presence that helps prevent the character from becoming a mere symbol; Wayans leans into menace as White, delivering a performance that radiates charisma even as his motives land in overt, almost sermon-like territory. Maurice Greene as Malek rounds out the circle, illustrating how the industry’s reach can pressure players who lack power. Yet as the story escalates, some scenes feel like direct sermon rather than suspenseful drama, and the script’s insistence on its aims sometimes stifles ambiguity. The desert drills, the hallucinations — are they real or are they manifestations of Cade’s fear? The film doubles down on the ambiguity early, then resolves it in a way that may leave some viewers unsatisfied, even as others appreciate the audacity.
Produced with involvement from Jordan Peele, Him aims to blend social critique with genre thrills. It arrives as an original concept that uses horror to examine an aspect of American life that often goes unexamined in mainstream cinema. While it may undercut its own tension at times with its explicit message, the film offers a provocative, unmistakable perspective on football’s power structures and the costs of chasing a dream that may be built on coercive ideals. For fans of adventurous, idea-driven cinema, Him provides both a cautionary alert and a memorable performance by Withers, with Wayans delivering a chilling foil.