Him (2025) Universal/Horror-Thriller RT: 96 minutes Rated R (strong bloody violence, language throughout, sexual material, nudity, some drug use) Director: Justin Tipping Screenplay: Skip Bronkie, Zack Akers and Justin Tipping Music: Bobby Krlic Cinematography: Kira Kelly Release date: September 19, 2025 (US) Cast: Marlon Wayans, Tyriq Withers, Julia Fox, Tim Heidecker, Jim Jeffries, Naomi Grossman, GiGi Erneta, Norman Towns, Maurice Greene, Guapdad 4000, Tierra Whack.
Rating: *
The director on record of the new horror-thriller Him is Justin Tipping. I have a sneaky (unconfirmed) suspicion producer Jordan Peele did all of the heavy lifting. It has his fingerprints all over it. If that’s true, then he’s basically giving audiences the middle finger with this muddled, incomprehensible, utterly meaningless pile of s***.
Peele started off strong with 2017’s Get Out but has steadily gone downhill with his subsequent efforts, Us (2019) and Nope (2022). Him is him hitting rock bottom. Okay, maybe that place right before rock bottom. Wherever it sits, it’s bad and not just bad. It’s BAD in all caps. It wants us to think it’s deep, but it has no idea what it wants to say. Consequently, it says nothing of any importance. The only statement it makes is Peele saying “Look at what I can get away with! I can put my name on any piece of crap and Hollywood will make it happen! So there!” It’s as blatant a display of hubris as last spring’s Weeknd vanity project Hurry Up Tomorrow.
I couldn’t get too much a read on the plot from the trailer. I figured seeing the movie would clear things up. NOPE! I’m as much in the dark as I was when the trailer dropped over the summer. I’ll give you what I’ve got though.
Cam Cade (Withers, I Know What You Did Last Summer) is destined for greatness on the football field. He’s been groomed for it since childhood. His late father raised him with a “no guts, no glory” mindset. Unfortunately, his destiny is jeopardized by a serious TBI after he gets his head split open by somebody wearing a demonic costume. Is it really over for Cam? NOPE!
Things get back on track for Cam when he’s invited to train with his idol, superstar QB Isaiah White (Wayans, Requiem for a Dream), at his private compound. The eight-time league champion plays for a team called the Saviors. He too came back from a debilitating injury. He sees potential for greatness in Cam. He promises he can make him the next GOAT. The compound is a weird place. It’s more like a cult sanctuary than a training facility. Things get weird real fast. Isaiah’s methods are, shall we say, unorthodox.
I have no problem with weird movies. I am a huge fan of David Lynch. I don’t have a problem with movies that don’t make sense right away. Sometimes it’s fun to put your mind to work. I do have a problem with movies that make no sense because they’re not about anything. That’s a perfect description of Him. It’s what my parents would have called a “put-on” much like they did with the Antonioni film Blow-Up. It’s filled with obvious religious references, but God only knows what any of it means. Is Tipping (or Peele) trying to say something about football being something like a religion in America? I have no freakin’ idea. Is he trying to make some statement about hero worship? Damned if I know. I watched Him in a total state of confusion. I didn’t know where it was going or if it even would go anywhere. I kept waiting for something to happen that would clear it all up. Eventually, I just stopped caring.
Sometimes a bad movie is made slightly less terrible by decent acting. That is not the case with Him. It’s made worse by the awful performances turned in by the cast. Withers has the range of a piece of driftwood. It looks like he took acting lessons from Channing Tatum. Wayans is totally miscast as the star athlete with a sinister secret. It’s not like he can’t do drama. He was amazing in Requiem for a Dream. He’s amazingly bad here. Julia Fox, so good in Uncut Dreams, isn’t any better as Isaiah’s social media influencer wife. In fact, she’s really annoying.
I want to talk about the credited director Justin Tipping for a moment. I don’t know anything about him. He has only one other title to his credit (2016’s Kicks) and I didn’t see it. However, if Him is an actual representation of the caliber of his work, he might want to consider a career change. It is incompetent on every level. As for what I said about Peele being the actual director, it’s just a theory in much the same way as a lot of people believe Steven Spielberg and not Tobe Hooper directed Poltergeist. Any way you look at it, the picture still stinks.
The one thing stopping me from slapping Him with zero stars is the bloodbath at the very end. I won’t go into detail, but it’s something worthy of Grand Guignol with all the spurting blood. If only the rest of the movie showed this spirit. I’ll grant that is has a certain energy, but it basically runs in place the entire time. It goes nowhere and says nothing. I call foul on this one.
