More fever dream than sports drama, “Him” unsettles with surreal horror and body-breaking symbolism—divisive but worth a second look.
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Some films arrive fully formed as cultural lightning rods. These are works that don’t simply play on the screen but detonate into discourse. Him (2025), directed by Justin Tipping and produced by Jordan Peele, is an example of such a film.
Vilified by critics yet fiercely defended by a growing contingent of viewers, Him embodies the paradox of modern cinema: it fails by conventional standards, but in its failure reveals something raw, strange, and unforgettable.
The critical consensus is damning. Words like flimsy, muddled, pretentious, and haphazard dominate reviews. The film’s dreamlike unraveling of a young quarterback’s rise under the mentorship of a charismatic but sinister legend is written off as incoherent.
And yes, Him is messy.
It is audacious to the point of absurdity. It does not fit neatly into genre expectations. But to demand neatness of a film like this is to miss the point.
Like Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder or Argento’s Suspiria, Him uses disorientation as a weapon.
Cameron Cade’s faltering grip on reality is at the heart of the narrative. The fractured storytelling, the jarring cuts, and the descent from a grounded sports drama into surreal phantasmagoria mirror the athlete’s unraveling psyche.
Critics decry the muddled message, but it can also be viewed as an intentional descent into chaos that reflects the psychological toll of ambition, exploitation, and identity collapse.
Even the harshest reviews concede the film’s technical bravura.
Tipping builds a sensory cathedral, full of hyper-saturated visuals, frenetic editing, and a score that thrums like bone on bone.
Football here is not sport but ritual sacrifice, played out in the architecture of sound and image. This is Suspiria with helmets and pads, a fever dream of spectacle and violence that reimagines the stadium as both church and slaughterhouse.
Then there is Marlon Wayans, who delivers the performance of his career as Isaiah White. Known primarily for comedy, Wayans weaponizes his charisma into something terrifying: equal parts benevolent mentor, cult leader, and demonic prophet.
He is at once magnetic and monstrous, embodying the Faustian bargain at the heart of the film. His Isaiah is the “Him” of the title, but also the false god demanded by a ravenous system.
At its core, Him is not a sports movie, nor even strictly a horror movie, but rather a cultural exorcism.
Football is recast as ritualized body horror, where flesh and spirit are consumed by an industry disguised as destiny.
Isaiah White offers a path to greatness at the cost of selfhood. Every surreal flourish, every grotesque image, every ritualistic gesture is tethered to this central truth: that greatness in America is purchased in blood.
The crucifixion imagery in the film’s explosive climax—Cameron, bloodied and shirtless, holding footballs like holy relics—seals the metaphor. Salvation here is corruption, and “amen” becomes a chant of violence.
It is shocking, unsubtle, and deeply effective.
To be clear, Him is not a perfect film.
But its creative messiness serves a higher purpose. It is not a story to be consumed but an experience to be endured. It is abrasive, grueling, and at times infuriating. But it is also bold, strange, and brimming with ideas.
It dares to merge sports mythology, horror surrealism, and religious allegory into something that may not entirely cohere… but leaves you haunted nonetheless.
This is why Him inspires such heated debate. It refuses the comfort of the familiar. It demands interpretation. It risks ridicule. And in doing so, it achieves what so much “safe” horror never does: it unsettles not only the characters on screen, but the audience’s relationship to culture itself.
For every critic who calls it empty, there will be an audience member who sees a misunderstood gem—a film that reveals the grotesque truth of our modern gladiator games.
That is why Him may have the power to endure, not as a box office statistic or Rotten Tomatoes percentage, but as a provocation. One worth defending.
Overall Rating (Out of 5 Butterflies): 3.5
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