Marlon Wayans in Jordan Peele-Produced Football Horror

There are so many horror stories about professional sports that it’s surprising there aren’t more horror movies about professional sports. The new film produced by Jordan Peele aims to fill that gap with its story of a rising star quarterback who encounters dark forces on his road to becoming the GOAT. Unfortunately, Him, directed by Justin Tipping (Kicks), squanders its potential. While it starts out promisingly, it seriously devolves in its second half into a surreal phantasmagoria that’s more gonzo than chilling. If you’re looking for a truly disturbing film about the dehumanizing effects of professional football in the corporate age, the one to see is still 1979’s North Dallas Forty.  

Him certainly tries to be disturbing. Too hard, in fact. The story begins realistically enough, with the central character, Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers, I Know What You Did Last Summer), introduced as a star college quarterback on the cusp of a professional career. But just as he’s about to participate in an NFL scouting event, he’s attacked by a mysteriously costumed figure and suffers a traumatic brain injury.

Cameron is advised to forget his dreams for the sake of his health. But having endured a childhood in which the idea of pursuing success at all costs was drummed into him by his father, he’s determined to keep going. So, encouraged by his rapacious agent (Tim Heidecker), he jumps at the chance to undergo personal training at the hands of Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans, working in a more dramatic mode than usual), a legendary quarterback whom Cameron has idealized since he was a child.

The first signs that something is amiss occurs when Cameron encounters a cult-like group of deranged, grotesque-looking people on the road to the football star’s isolated desert compound. Once he gets there, the affable White greets him and confiscates his phone, explaining to Cameron that he’ll be experiencing “radical detachment” from outside communication and social media.

The subsequent coaching, overseen by White along with a wisecracking sports doctor (comedian Jim Jefferies) and a hulking trainer (MMA heavyweight fighter Maurice Greene), results in Cameron undergoing psychological intimidation — “You ain’t nothing but an emotional little pretty boy,” White taunts him —and brutal physical ordeals. Not only for him, but also for a hapless fellow athlete who’s subjected to footballs repeatedly propelled into his face at high speed whenever Cameron fails to complete a pass. Cameron is also encouraged to undergo frequent blood transfusions of a highly suspicious nature.

It only gets weirder from there. Much, much weirder, as the former Black List screenplay, co-written by Tipping, Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie, launches into full bizarro mode with trippy episodes including — I kid you not — a visual reenactment of the painting “The Last Supper.”

The film is visually arresting at times, as when the gruelingly violent encounters between the football players is depicted via X-ray style effects in which the internal damage to their bodies is vividly portrayed. The musical score composed by Bobby Krlic, aka The Haxan Cloak, proves suitably unsettling. And the performers give it their all, with Withers impressively handling the intense physicality of his role and Wayans effectively intimidating as the football legend whose prowess isn’t purely natural (the actor also got himself into admirable shape for the role). Jefferies is a deadpan hoot as the sardonic sports doc, and Julia Fox infuses formidable strangeness to her turn as White’s influencer spouse.

But by the time it gets to the truly baroque, extremely gory final act that will leave audience members either hooting in delight or shaking their heads in derision, Him has long since gone off the rails.