2025 has been an excellent year for horror and hoping to join that pantheon is Him and is that unheard of hybrid the sports horror movie – although any film made about my 5-a-side team would qualify. At the centre of this is Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers) an American football quarterback who as a boy watched his hero Isiah White (Marlon Wayans) sustain an injury that puts him out of the game. But as Cade’s father tells his son ‘No guts, no glory’ and some years later when he is playing the game professionally he is about to find out the truth of that.
After sustaining a serious head injury from a mysterious demonic entity Cade, with his head injury containing more staples than a stationers, is selected by White to train at his desert compound to see if he can assume his mantle as King of the Quarterbacks. Split in to six chapters for each day of the week that he trains there the with titles such as ‘Sacrifice’ meant illustrate the punishing training he will be put through to see if he’s got what it takes. What follows is a series of increasingly brutal and life threatening scenarios that builds to a climatic and bloody finale.
The US football scene has always been an integral part of the culture with God and Family being the other cornerstones and the symbolic nods to Christianity here are many taking in the crucifix pose of Cade in several scenes to a recreation of the Last Supper and none of it really makes any sense within the context of the story. With director Justin Tipping co-writing with Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie this is dreadfully convoluted with a muddled message that doesn’t touchdown. And as sumptuously shot as it is many of the sequences start to look like expensive rap videos
The meat market view of the US football scene was far better covered in Oliver Stone’s ‘Any Given Sunday’ and frankly was far more entertaining but Him is a muddled mess that at 97 minutes duration is 97 minutes too long.
related feature : Actor – producer Terry Bird talks Sweeney Todd and horror mash ups
related feature : ‘When Evil Lurks’ – director Demian Rugna talks demons, conspiracies & horrors
Here’s the Him trailer…..
