Culture
‘HIM’ is an entertaining, but unusual, blend of sports film and horror movie
By: Gordon Briggs
Posted on:
I’ve seen plenty of horror movies in my time, but I haven’t seen many that venture into the world of sports.
With its fetishizing of the male body, blood doping, broken bones, brain injury, and other forms of physical trauma, the world of professional sports makes for a surprisingly good setting for body horror. Maybe that’s why I dug HIM. It takes the violence and brutality so often celebrated by the culture and uses it to create something new: “Sports Horror.”
Here we follow the story of Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers), an up-and-coming professional athlete, who, after suffering a career-ending head injury, is invited to train at the mysterious compound of a powerful football player Cade idolized as a child, Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans). Slowly, it becomes clear that Wayans is no ordinary football coach and that his plans for Cade may cost him his soul. As his violent training intensifies, dark and ominous forces begin to circle the young athlete as he grows uncertain about what’s real and what isn’t.
What distinguishes this movie is its unique visual style. It isn’t enough to simply say the film “looks good.” HIM consists of a distinct visual structure, characterized by close-ups. Much like Johnathan Demme did in The Silence of the Lambs, the movie features characters speaking directly to the camera (and, by extension, addressing us in the audience) with false smiles. This method fosters a deeper connection and empathy between the audience and Cade, leading viewers to feel like they are participating in his brutal training rather than simply observing it from a distance. Not only does the movie make us feel like Cade is not in control of his own space, but because of its visual style, the audience feels that discomfort as well.
Furthermore, I like the strange teacher/student relationship between Wayans and Withers. It’s a kind of Faustian mind game being played, where pain is a path to victory. Specifically, it isn’t that Wayans wants to hurt his student; the goal is to make the young quarterback want to hurt other people. That’s different from other body horror films I’ve seen, where characters try their best to avoid bodily pain; this is a movie where the hero is manipulated into seeking it out.
If there’s a flaw, it’s that this feels like 45 minutes of story and setup stretched out to 90 minutes of movie, so I can understand the film’s icy reception. Still, I think there are enough qualities here to make HIM an eventual cult flick.
Rating:★★★