Him is a 2025 sports/horror film produced by Monkeypaw Productions, directed by Justin Tipping, and starring Tyriq Withers, Marlon Wayans, and Julia Fox. The story follows a young quarterback, Cameron Cade (Withers) who suffers a head injury after an attack by a crazed fan that could be potentially career ending, dropping his draft stock significantly before he even makes it to the league. That is until he’s offered a once in a lifetime opportunity to be trained by his childhood hero, Isaiah White (Wayans), at his isolated compound, then all hell slowly starts to break loose. This movie was strange, because although it was labeled as a sports/horror film (very original and untapped territory in film there), it felt neither like a sports movie or a horror movie in a lot of ways.
There was no actual in-game football played in the entire runtime of the movie, a few scenes of practice and scrimmaging, but outside of that, none. The horror of the movie mostly came from feeling unsettled and confused. The characters at the compound and their behaviors and motives made you uneasy but there wasn’t a lot of ‘make you jump with fright’ moments really. If anything, this movie felt a little more like a psychological thriller with the premise of the story revolving around football, to me. I have a hard time technically classifying this as sports or horror. Marlon Wayans was great in it though, I’m used to seeing him as one half of the silly, comedic Wayans Bros so seeing him get a little crazed and unsettling in this was fresh, and I feel like he nailed it pretty well. He still had some laughable, comedic lines though and I’m not entirely sure if all of them were meant to be as silly as they came off, but when they’re said by Marlon Wayans, they just kind of tend to get taken that way by me. Tyriq Withers did pretty well also in the lead role as Cameron Cade, I can’t say I know his name or recognized him from anything before this, so he was a fresh face to me. Nothing about his performance blew me away by any means, but he did well enough that I didn’t mind the story revolving around him or that we spent a majority of the time with him either. Julia Fox almost felt like her character wasn’t really even needed for the movie, all in all. That’s no fault on her either, she did fine in the role and omitted an unsettling, sexual nature throughout the film, but I just never fully understood her purpose, I guess. I’ve heard her name mainly because she dated Kanye West a few years back I believe but I have never seen her acting either, so she was a fresh face for me as well.
The soundtrack to this movie was a banger as well. A lot of hype rap, the kind of music you’d hear during pregame warmups before a football game. I kept catching momentary vibes from the songs they played throughout the film so that’s a definite plus. Overall though, I’m still undecided how I feel about this one. There were scenes and moments I really enjoyed, I thought the climax was awesome and the level of gore and violence were increased tenfold in the closing moments and then it was just over and that was a hell of a way to go with it, ended it on a bang. Then there were other moments and characters that felt entirely pointless, or confusing, or just awkward and didn’t fit the vibe of the rest of the movie. I have a hard time really recommending this one to anyone because normally I’d say something like “if you’re a big football fan or a big horror movie fan, then you should check it out” but I don’t even know that that’s going to be the case for everyone here. I’m a huge fan of both football and horror movies and I still walked out of the theater scratching my head and unsure of my final thoughts. Now it’s been a number of days since I’ve seen this movie at this point, and I still can’t exactly tell you what I think about it. I respect that they took certain risks here though and made the art that they wanted to make, even if it isn’t the way I would’ve liked it to be necessarily. I can honestly say, this isn’t the movie that I thought it was going to be really when I went to go see it and that was kind of a disappointment for me, but that’s alright. You aren’t supposed to fully vibe with everything in art and if I liked everything then I wouldn’t be a fan of anything.
Overall, I’d say take my opinion with a grain of salt and if this looks of interest to you, give it a watch and see what you think for yourself. I am just here to share my thoughts on topics I enjoy, and my thoughts have been shared. If this wasn’t one you were excited for though or you didn’t know if you wanted to see it then I don’t think you need to rush out to a theater immediately either and can wait for it to eventually, inevitably, come to streaming. That’s all for this one though folks! Make sure to like the page on social media or bookmark the website and check back regularly to see all my latest posts on new movies, horror films, WWE, and NFL! Till next time, be good to one another.
