Plot Summary: A young star football player is given the opportunity to train with his idol at a remote compound. If he excels, he may win a spot on the team that he has worshipped his whole life. He soon learns that all is not as it seems and the danger goes far beyond game-time injuries.  

Runtime: 96 minutes

Director: Justin Tipping

Writer: Skip Bronkie, Zack Akers, Justin Tipping

• Marlon Wayans as Isaiah White
• Tyriq Withers as Cameron "Cam" Cade
• Julia Fox as Elsie White
• Tim Heidecker as Tom
• Jim Jefferies as Marco

Review by: Lauren

At its center is Cam Cade (Withers), a young quarterback whose life has been shaped by worship: for his father, for sport, for Isaiah White (Wayans), the legendary star he hopes to replace. After a concussion threatens his future, Cam accepts White’s offer to train at a desert compound. What begins as mentorship quickly warps into something sinister…and even occult. The divide between the devotional and the violent is intentionally porous here, but Tipping sometimes treads too heavy‑handedly on that border, spelling out allegory where nuance would have been more powerful. 

Still, when Him works, it pulses. The film is at its most disturbing when its visuals don’t explain themselves, like when a hallucination or X‑ray shot forces you to live inside Cam’s bruised brain. Cinematographer Kira Kelly leans into asymmetry, swirls of red light, and desert desolation. In those sequences it shows its power. 

Yet the narrative often buckles under the weight of its ambitions. The film is divided into chapters, one per day of training, but transitions feel tenuous. Character motivations shift without warning. White’s descent into fanaticism is meant to shock, but the reveal of his twisted logic is laid out in soapbox monologues rather than slow-burning subtext. Cam’s trajectory toward violence feels inevitable (which might be the point) but we rarely see the fracture grow, only the final collapse. 

Still, performances help keep the film from sinking entirely. Wayans leans into the creepiness of White’s charisma: he’s charming, worshipful, then cruel. That oscillation is one of the film’s eeriest notes. Withers, by contrast, plays Cam as blank slate and vessel, letting fear, ambition, and exhaustion flicker on his face even when dialogue fails him. 

In the end, Him is a messy ascent toward a violent climax. The final act veers into ritual sacrifice, blood on a field, madness made literal. The ambition is bold, but the execution is fractious. When Him is at its best, it asks us: What is the cost of greatness? Who do we bend to: God, fandom, self? And what (or who) do we kill to get there? But the more it tries to answer, the less convincing it becomes. 

If you’re attracted to films that bleed ambition and style, or that take big swings even when they risk missing, Him may reward you. But if you need narrative clarity, grounded character arcs, or emotional resonance, you may find it hollow. 

Images Courtesy of IMDB