Him

"Football. Family. God."

If I have one true love in life, beyond video games, beyond horror movies, beyond ridiculous shark movies, it is football. As soon as the games kick off every Sunday afternoon, I sit on the couch and I do not move for the next eleven hours. There is very little that I do not know about this sport. I love it. It's something of an obsession.

All of which is to say that I am this movie's exact target audience.

This review is spoiler free!

I wish that I could say that Him is amazing and that it was everything that I wanted in a football focused horror movie. Unfortunately, I cannot. Him is the worst kind of movie: the kind that is dripping with potentional and yet refuses to engage with it at every turn.

I'll start with the stuff that I really enjoyed. This is a very visually striking movie. The use of color and shadows was consistently excellent. There's a very strong visual style and language here that filtered down to mascot design, to outfits, and to little touches like the very visible gold cross that Cam, our protagonist, wears.

I also loved the occasional x-ray vision that showed just how much damage bodies can take. There's a strong undercurrent of body horror here. The violence itself was always very visceral. I frequently cringed and glanced away from the screen, even though I wouldn't necessarily call it graphic. Football is inherently violent, and Him absolutely does not shy away from that. I wish that we got more of that.

Marlon Wayans is also amazing as Isaiah White, an aging quarterback who switches between charming mentor and something altogether more sinster and disturbing on a dime. But there are still moments of quiet and tired humanity that were just another hint of something that the movie wasn't interested in pursuing.

Tyriq Withers is fine as Cam, a prospect already heralded as the next game-defining quarterbaack. He certainly looks the part. There isn't nearly as much actual football as I had hoped, but what we do see all looks and feels real. He just isn't really given anything interesting in terms of characterization, nor does he develop in ways that make sense.

The plot is very disjointed, bordering on not really existing. Everything is broken up into subtitled days. Each day makes sense within itself, but there's very little connective tissue. It's less a movie and more a series of vignettes. Cam watches something spooky and/or violent happen, and then we move on as if it never really happened.

And it's just so frustrating because there's just so, so much there that is begging to be dug into. Instead, plots are brought up and dropped with little fanfare. Brand new ideas are introduced literally in the last ten minutes that are fascinating, but because there's only ten minutes left nothing can be done with it.

This is also the opposite of a subtle movie. Isaiah plays for a team called the Saviors. Their mascot is some kind of weird goat thing. Horned demon iconography abounds. Their opponents in a critical game are the Masons. Like I mentioned, Cam very prominently wears a cross that may or may not become inverted at some point. (I'm genuinely not sure, but it seemed like it.)

The lack of subtlety saps a lot of early tension. And late tension too, now that I think about it. There was no tension. Just things happening as I sat there and wrote a different movie in my head. I was never scared or even creeped out. I wish that I was. I wanted this movie to be good so badly, and yet it just missed the mark.

Finally, there was one sequence with flashing, colored lights where I had to physically turn 90 degrees away and cover my face because it was bothering me so badly. It's the worst I've felt in a theater that I can remember. Please be aware if you're sensitive to such a thing.

A Football Rant

So this part is going to be slightly spoilery with regards to first act of the movie, but the way that Cam is pushed to go train with Isaiah in the first place is just wrong. This is where my football knowledge comes back to bite me. It's petty, but there's also a very simple way to fix it, and so I shall rant.

We open with Cam going to the Combine, which is arguably the most important event for prospects before Draft Day. For those who do not know, the Combine runs for several days, and includes interviews with coaching staff, medical examinations, and various drills measuring speed, strength, and different skills. A good showing at the Combine can raise your draft stock immensely. A bad showing can and will do the opposite.

Because of this, highly ranked prospects have stopped participating in the Combine in recent years, especially quarterbacks. A generational talent, like Cam is said to be, would never be doing anything beyond interviews at the Combine in the first place. He certainly would not be doing anything physical, and it would not be seen as strange. He would not be penalized for it.

My second and third issues are tied into money. Cam is pressured to agree with the reminder that being drafted will lead to generational wealth for his family. This is fair enough. The top quarterbacks are currently making about $60 million a year. Here is the issue.

In 2021, there was a Supreme Court case called NCAA vs Alston, which allowed college and high school athletes to earn money from non-scholarship sources. They now have their own NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) rights, so they, for example, get Nike to pay them $1 million to be in advertisements. Top college quarterbacks are now making upwards of $6.8 million dollars in NIL deals. Cam would already be making millions.

Now, for the contract. Starting in 2011, the rookie contract was standardized. The compensation is determined by draft number. No matter who is taken at the first pick, whether it's a generational talent or someone completely random, their contract is already done. This year, the first pick got roughly $4.5 million a year. The last pick got around $1 million.

A lot of money, to be sure, but compared to the NIL that Cam absolutely would have had? It's a little less impressive.

But there's a very easy fix in order to make Cam's desperation to save his draft position and earn money for his family: set the movie in 2005. Or really at any point before 2011.

Why? Because before 2011, teams could reach out to players and negotiate contracts before Draft Day. And college athletes were unpaid, so the money actually meant something.

Okay. Rant over.

~~~~
An Honest Fangirl loves video games, horror movies, and superheroes, and occasionally manages to put words together in a coherent and pleasing manner.

• Movie Reviews home