Movie · 2025 · Horror, Mystery · 1h 36m · R · English
Curator score: 0.6/10 (256.4K ratings)
Greatness demands sacrifice.
Overview
After suffering a potentially career-ending brain trauma, Cameron Cade receives a lifeline when his hero, legendary eight-time Championship quarterback and cultural megastar Isaiah White, offers to train Cam at Isaiah's isolated compound that he shares with his celebrity influencer wife. But as Cam's training accelerates, Isaiah's charisma begins to curdle into something darker.
Ratings
Curator score: 0.6/10
IMDb: 5.0/10
Letterboxd: 2.53/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 31%
Metacritic: 38
TMDB: 5.7/10
Director
Justin Tipping
Production
Monkeypaw Productions, Universal Pictures
Cast
Marlon Wayans, Tyriq Withers, Julia Fox, Tim Heidecker, Jim Jefferies, Maurice Greene, Indira G. Wilson, Geron McKinley, Heather Lynn Harris, Don Benjamin, Guapdad 4000, Austin Pulliam, Ethan Michael Airey, Richard Lippert, Naomi Grossman, Adam Tedesco, Bryce Dylan, Tierra Whack, Kiara Gomez Glad Bak, Chase Garland
Where to watch
Netflix, Netflix Standard with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A flashy, divisive sports-horror satire with a strong central premise and enough visual ambition to keep it interesting, but it sounds uneven in execution and thematically blunt. Best approached as a stylized descent into toxic masculinity and celebrity worship rather than a clean, satisfying horror story.
Best for
Viewers who like body-horror-adjacent psychological thrillers
Fans of sports movies twisted into social satire
People who enjoy loud, maximalist filmmaking with big swings
Audiences open to allegory over realism
Skip if
You want tight plotting and a fully coherent theme
You dislike heavy-handed symbolism
You expect straightforward football drama
You prefer horror that builds slowly and subtly
Overview
HIM is built on a great hook: a young quarterback, a fallen hero, and an isolated training compound where mentorship turns predatory. The setup naturally invites comparisons to obsession stories, cult dynamics, and the cost of chasing greatness, and the film seems most alive when it leans into that pressure-cooker energy.
Worth noting
The response suggests a movie that is more interesting than it is fully successful. Some viewers read it as a sharp takedown of toxic masculinity and the spectacle around male athletic worship; others found it thematically muddled, over-edited, and too eager to force its ideas. That split usually means the film has strong images and a clear mood, but not always the discipline to support them.
Bottom line
If you’re in the mood for a brash, metaphor-heavy horror film with sports as a psychological battlefield, it’s worth a look. If you want a cleaner thriller or a more elegant satire, this one may feel like a promising concept stretched past its best shape.
Top Letterboxd reviews
michelle (4★) · 14702 likes
the people who disliked this probably haven't experienced the epic highs and lows of high school football
Nightmare Maven (3★) · 11468 likes
the substance for men
patronsaint (3★) · 6588 likes
in my snuggie deepthroating the glock
Sydney🚀 (2★) · 6093 likes
There is a recreation of the last supper in this that made the guy in front of me involuntarily burst out laughing omggg i feel bad lol