Tyriq Withers’ young athlete is in over his head when he’s sent to train with a legend. Our spoiler-free thoughts on HIM. So far, 2025 has been an excellent year for horror. In fact, most of this year’s best films have been horror films or at least have had strong flavours of horror; Sinners, 28 ... HIM review | Touchdown or a missed pass?
Tyriq Withers’ young athlete is in over his head when he’s sent to train with a legend. Our spoiler-free thoughts on HIM.
So far, 2025 has been an excellent year for horror. In fact, most of this year’s best films have been horror films or at least have had strong flavours of horror; Sinners, 28 Years Later, The Long Walk, Weapons, all deeply disturbing and visceral.
HIM looks to continue that trend. The film comes from director Justin Tipping and stars Tyriq Withers as Cameron Cade, a young promising football player whose career is nearly ruined by a severe head injury.
His chance for a comeback comes when he’s sent to train with Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), a legendary football champion who also came back after a severe, nearly career-ending injury and is now looking to potentially retire. But because this is a horror film, things start to get a little fishy at White’s huge home and training compound. If everything went well, we wouldn’t have a movie, would we?
From its first moments, long before we get to the more horrific stuff, there’s an oppressing atmosphere to HIM. The film opens with a young Cameron watching Isaiah play on TV and his father egging him on to become the next GOAT, to be the best, to become something bigger than anything else. Cameron’s father tells him this is more than a sport and after their team wins, he elatedly exclaims “We did it!”. Tipping carefully, maybe a little forcefully, emphasises the cultural impact and community around sports and how that can quickly get out of hand and turn toxic.
GOAT is a word that comes up a lot in HIM. In fact, the film was at one point titled GOAT, but later changed to its current title. The word stands for Greatest Of All Time, used often by youngsters on social media. Here, GOAT is something larger than life, a status, a reputation, an identity. But there can only be one, leaving Isaiah and Cameron also competing for that title and the adoration of the screaming crowds, but the road there is long and hard.
“Welcome to church,” Isaiah states on the first day of training. The “no guts, no glory” saying takes on a whole other meaning in HIM as Isaiah pushes Cameron to his breaking point and beyond it. Ultimately, Tipping’s film is about sacrifice, the price of success and our obsession with it. Isaiah constantly insists that this is more than a sport; “This is everything,” he screams at Cameron, who quickly begins to doubt Isaiah’s unconventional training methods.
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It’s easy to believe, too. Wayans brings a fierce commitment to the role and sells Isaiah’s obsession compellingly. He is the carrying force of HIM, which works in favour of and against the film. On one hand, watching such a performance is a thrill, but nothing quite matches the intensity of Wayans’ performance.
Withers’ more innocent play works here well, too, but like everything else, it’s overshadowed by Wayans’ bigger, flashier part. The pair have excellent chemistry and an interesting dynamic that’s not too dissimilar from the dynamic between Steve Carell and Channing Tatum in Benedict Miller’s excellent Foxcatcher. There are also shades of Black Swan and Whiplash in HIM’s DNA, but Tipping often chooses to focus on more traditional horror cliches.
That being said, Tipping isn’t afraid to go full-out on the brutality here. The director makes use of X-ray imagery to show the full impact of the harsh hits players take. There are bones sticking out of limbs, brains getting thrown around inside the skull and one poor lad even gets hit with a football over and over again while Cameron misses his shots during training. It’s the same kind of viciousness that The Long Walk made good use out of and both films manage to use it to their advantage without making it into simple spectacle.
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There are very few surprises here. The imagery feels a little too familiar and it’s easy to see where the film is going within the first 20 minutes. The journey there is still a lot of fun, but the more you think about HIM, the clearer it becomes that the sum of its parts doesn’t quite add up.
HIM is in UK cinemas 3rd October.
