Pity the casual moviegoer who just wanted to see a Marlon Wayans football flick, or a Jordan Peele-produced horror joint. Because Him is, instead, a mind-scrambling primal scream in the spirit of anti-capitalist provocations by the likes of Robert Downey Sr (Putney Swope), Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You), and Coralie Fargeat (The Substance).
It does start generically enough; in flashback, we find a football-mad family cheering their beloved San Antonio Saviors. Dad is particularly obsessed, and he sees future glory in his young son. Ten years later, he's been proved right: Cam (Atlanta’s Tyriq Withers) is a rising star quarterback tapped to replace the Saviors’ retiring hero, Isaiah White (Wayans). First, though, he has to prove himself at White’s private boot camp.
Cam is still recovering from a mysterious attack that left him concussed, but his father – who’s since died – always insisted that a real man pushes through any pain. So he shows up at White's isolated bunker of a home, where it soon becomes clear this isn’t ordinary training: White plans to break him down to build him back up. Before long, Cam is put through a surreal gauntlet that involves body horror, hallucinations, and maybe, though he's in no shape to be certain, murder.
Director Justin Tipping and his co-writers, Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie, have a lot on their minds. Him addresses the cult of football, but it's also about – among other things – fame, family, religion, race, and class. In its feverish efforts to expose the sickness of sports culture, and the ways in which corporations exploit all participants for profit, this is really a darkly experimental indie trapped inside a traditional multiplex release.
It’s a darkly experimental indie trapped inside a traditional multiplex release
When you’re swinging so big, you need a very solid base and Tipping's found it in the charismatic contrast of his two outstanding leads. Withers is consistently moving as a humble kid with big dreams and bigger responsibilities; Wayans is nearly unrecognisable in his brutal intensity. Julia Fox struggles in an underwritten role as White’s creepy wife.
It doesn’t all work: the religious iconography is too obvious, and the more lurid horror elements – like the obsessive fans who literally haunt Cam during his training – can be so heavy-handed they’re more silly than scary.
What never falters, though, is Tipping’s avid commitment to his concept. As a result, most viewers’ mileage will depend on how strongly they connect with his determination to expose the rotted soul of Americana.
In US theaters Fri Sep 19 and UK cinemas Oct 3.