“HIM” is the kind of movie that frustrates you because the better version is so easy to imagine. On paper, it’s a killer idea: a young, ambitious football player (Tyriq Withers) travels to an isolated, possibly malevolent training compound run by a legendary but washed-up quarterback (Marlon Wayans) who isn’t ready to let go. The setup is rich with possibilities—exploring the religiosity of sports fandom, the exploitation of Black athletes by major leagues, and the tension between aging and fame. Unfortunately, the execution squanders those promising ingredients, leaving us with what feels like a rough draft of a potentially great film.
It’s not always fair to hold a movie against its marketing, but here the campaign feels like the film’s biggest obstacle. Marketed with a massive Jordan Peele producer credit, “HIM” was sold as the next “elevated” social thriller. Peele’s name certainly gets people in seats, but it also creates expectations this film simply can’t meet. Peele has earned his reputation by delivering horror films with bite and staying power. “HIM,” by contrast, is hype over substance—an undercooked stew of half-baked ideas and flashy visuals.
Over-reliance on Style of Substance
And the ideas are there. At times, the film gestures toward sharp cultural critiques—how fandom blurs into religious devotion, how bodies are commodified by billion-dollar sports institutions, how grief and ambition intertwine. But instead of developing these threads, the script reduces them to window dressing. The result is an under-formed and overly artistic idea of a smart movie—more interested in dreamlike editing flourishes than in saying anything meaningful.
That overreliance on hazy dream-reality blending is another problem. What begins as a stylistic choice quickly numbs the audience; if everything might be a hallucination, then nothing has stakes. Combine that with hyperactive, music-video-style editing, and the story slips through your fingers. For a supposed horror film, “HIM” is startlingly frictionless and never once scary.
Tyriq Withers and Marlon Wayans Perform Well
The cast, to their credit, shows up ready to play. Withers—memorable from “Atlanta” and a bright spot in the even-messier “I Know What You Did Last Summer” reboot—gives a committed performance. He can hold a close-up and sell the character’s drive, but the script saddles him with a frustratingly passive arc that checks off the Elevated Horror bingo card: capital-G, Grief over his father’s death. Marlon Wayans, meanwhile, is excellent as the fading sports legend. It’s a performance that’s both over-the-top and credible, and it deserved a better movie around it.
In the end, “HIM” feels like waiting for a game-winning drive that never comes. The plays are called, the field is set, the visuals look sharp—but the film never crosses the line of scrimmage. It’s not unwatchable—there are flashes of inspiration, a handful of striking images, and actors doing their best—but it’s a letdown. What could have been a touchdown is instead a fumble.
