Him (2025) Review: Football Horror Movie Becomes the Most Divisive Film of the Year

 

Copyright © Universal Pictures, Monkeypaw Productions

Title: Him

Director: Justin Tipping

Release Date: September 19, 2025

    Because New Line Cinema won Weapons after its bidding war, a random sports horror movie is in the hands of Jordan Peele. This year, horror seems to be taking the positive-to-mixed route, but one of the new flicks has taken the genre to a recent low. Today's movie is Him, the football horror movie produced by Jordan Peele. Against a budget of $27 million, the movie flops with an approximate $25 million from theaters worldwide. It gained negative reviews from critics for style over substance, and audiences were mixed with polarized views on its story. Albeit it has a unique concept for the horror genre, Him is a mediocre football match that is more like a music video than a movie.

Summary

   "Cameron Cade is a rising quarterback who suffers a potentially career-ending injury after being attacked by an unhinged fan. Just when all seems lost, Cam receives a lifeline when his hero, Isaiah White, offers to train him at an isolated compound. However, as the training accelerates, Isaiah's charisma turns into something darker, sending Cam down a disorienting rabbit hole that may cost him more than he ever bargained for." - Google

Reasons

    The misses of Him are the predictability, half-baked themes, and unbalanced genre mashup. It barely has any subtlety because the clues are too obvious. When Cam enters the compound, you can tell what will happen next: exploitation, sacrifice, rituals, and quitting. Foreshadowing is fine, but it should not be done to the extreme. Besides the predictability, the themes are not explored enough. The story is basically about stardom, control, and identity. However, all of them are not given much explanation nor weight to emit a connection. As for the third quality, the balance of sports drama and horror is clunky. Pretty much Jordan Peele was just a marketing tactic for the backfired commercial success plan. As someone who is not a sports fan, I did see that it was barely committing to football culture.
    Say all you want about Him being a terrible movie, but its mixed qualities are the performances, spiritual symbolism, and visuals. The performances were quite intense, yet they can get emotionally exaggerated. Most notably, Marlon Wayans is a good choice for Isaiah considering that he is not an A-list actor, even if he leans into melodrama when he portrays his character's insanity. The same goes for Tyriq Withers as Cam, which was a tad better performance in my honest opinion. Alongside, the spiritual symbolism is intriguing, but it was not developed enough. Like with the moral themes, it shows the horrors of stardom with a lack of explanation. Plus, it was just thrown in there as an attempt to be disturbing. As others were saying, the visuals were bold, even if they are in your face throughout the whole story. It uses heavy cinematography and moody lighting to make an eerie look. The bad thing about the editing is that it uses too many dramatic filters for attention.
    On the bright side, the scores of Him are the interesting concept, chilling scares, and good soundtrack. Football horror is something we have never seen before. It's done to show the consequences of sports stardom. Although the football horror concept was poorly executed, it was indeed worth a try. If that is not enough, then the scares are pretty effective. I'm not saying all of them were scary. I'm saying a few of them worked. The scares are a mix of gore and body horror to portray football in the most sickening way possible. Lastly, the soundtrack is pretty fire. Sure, it is a small part of the movie, but its songs are nice to play at a football match. To keep the horror aspect, the score has moody instrumentals in some serious scenes.

Conclusion

    Unlike how many people are complaining about it, Him is just your average horror movie from a big company. It is a predictable story that does not develop its themes that well, yet it also tries a unique concept with a few effective kills. Again, it's extremely divisive. You can say it's terrible, meh, decent, or even amazing. I'm just going to say that it's a mediocre film that at least does something new. Sure, it's the worst horror movie of the year, but not one of the worst movies of the year. If you are a big horror fan, give it a shot if you even have a desire to do so. Otherwise, I'd recommend looking for something better.

    Score: 4/10 (unique concept, but sadly executed)