This article was originally published on the DIASPORA Newsletter on September 19, 2025. Read and subscribe here!
SPOILER ALERT: This review includes details from the movie HIM.
“It’s giving Black Swan but football.” I was trying to explain what I thought HIM was going to be about to a budtender at my local dispenser. I was purchasing a nice potent indica to smoke right before a screening of director Justin Tipping’s football horror starring Marlon Wayans and Tyriq Withers.
I was kind of right.
From a coveted Black List screenplay written by Zack Akers & Skip Bronkie, as well as Tipping HIM takes the familiar story of a hyper-focused football star Golden Boy who will stop at nothing to be the G.O.A.T. and fucks it all the way up.
The Golden Boy in question is Cameron Cade (Withers), whose identity has been hinged on football since birth. He has garnered a reputation as a rising star quarterback and has his eye on playing for the San Antonio Saviors which is led by Cam’s personal hero: the legendary QB Isaiah White (Wayans).
But the night before the annual scouting Combine, Cam is attacked by a psychotic fan and is left with a traumatic brain injury, which threatens his career as a star athlete and his entire future.
Just as he feels all hope is lost, his manager, Tom (Tim Heidecker), throws him a lifeline and says that White — his hero — is willing to train him for a week at his state-of-the-art compound that looks like something from Tatooine.
There, he meets his influencer wife, Elsie (Julia Fox), as well as resident doctor Marco (Jim Jefferies), who seems to have a cure for anything. It seems like an athlete’s training utopia until weird shit starts happening. And weird shit has to happen, otherwise it wouldn’t be a Monkeypaw film produced by Jordan Peele.
I smoked a nice, joyous sun-grown indica before watching HIM because I knew that it was going to have some intense bloody moments that would make me go “ack”. I needed something to balance out the anxiety of that horror, and the weed did its job. I say this because I didn’t necessarily see HIM as a horror. If anything, it was a dramatic thriller or a suspense thriller with “monster” elements — and perhaps that was one of the main problems with HIM. The movie is confident with its style but not entirely sure about its identity.
Cam is being pushed to his limits and is being groomed to take over a legend’s spot, but it seems that the legend isn’t quite ready to give up his place. If anything, they have one thing in common: they want to be the best. He is often haunted by this “mascot monster,” but there is no payoff. There is this dream-like hyperrealism that is mined but never fully explored. And there are times when the horrific imagery is superfluous and shoehorned in for impact.
There feels like there could be a huge supernatural element, but there isn’t, and the occult element that is presented is half-baked. The film has a substantial amount of subtext, but the style is doing the majority of the lifting.
It dances around imagery and themes from All About Eve, Black Swan, Donnie Darko, and Any Given Sunday with a sprinkling of Whiplash, a dash of Varsity Blues, and a sprig of Taxi Driver for garnish. There’s even a side of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread. Its cinematic personality becomes muddled amidst the exhilarating visuals of striking imagery that Tipping takes us on.
Above all, HIM puffs its chest with confidence. Where it lacks in clarity, it makes up for in performance and point of view. It is what Tipping stands firm on, and it is what will keep me going back to watching his films.
HIM marks Tipping’s second feature since his 2016 debut Kicks. He introduced us to his distinct hyper-fantastical vision and layered it on top of subtext. Kicks follows a teenager in a marginalized community whose image revolves around a pair of Air Jordans. HIM follows a man from a marginalized community whose future as a football star is at stake and in the hands of his hero. It’s exciting to see this parallel and how Tipping’s cinematic vocabulary translates into a world of X-ray vision silhouette action sequences and pep rally sacrifices led by football mascots. It’s a delight to watch.
Tipping pulls tense performances from his acting collective. We can’t help but root for Cam and fall in love with him and Withers steps into that role well. Fox feels like she was born to play a delusional butt plug-toting influencer wife, while Jefferies and Heidecker live in the same hyperrealistic, horrific HIM cinematic universe as Fox’s Elsie. But it’s Wayans as Isaiah White that eats up the screen with glee.
Wayans plays sports star psychosis well, and he could have easily made it go off the rails wild, but he surprisingly plays it quietly. And when he does get loud, its a monstrous roar. This was almost like a reverse Misery situation with Isaiah White being comparable to Annie Wilkes. The mentally unhinged hero is the one stalking and hunting down the fan. Wayans plays it with such intensity that it pierces through the screen — it’s so scary. Scarier than his performance in White Chicks. Just playin’. Nonetheless, Wayans owns HIM.
HIM has its share of issues, but it’s also a trip to watch — and I’m not just saying that because I was on a good strain of indica called Ice Cream Cake. It’s a good movie-going experience, and just based on the shooting styles and bold storytelling choices he makes, HIM is a testament to Tipping’s love of cinema.
