REVIEW: “HIM”: A Descent Into Madness Through Relentless Determination

The poster for “HIM” , a horror film about a football player (wikipedia.org).

September 30, 2025

Zachary Myers, Editor

Two of my favorite things to watch are football and horror movies. When I saw that Jordan Peele was directing a combination of both, I thought I’d have to see it. After watching it, it was a great piece of film.

HIM stars Tyriq Weathers as Cameron Cade, a rising football star who was a childhood fan of the San Antonio Saviors. After watching the team win the championship as a kid, he idolizes the team’s quarterback, Isaiah White (played by Marlon Wyans), who suffers a horrific injury at the end of the game. Years later and after the death of Cam’s influential father (played by Don Benjamin), Cam tries out for the league combine. During a night time solo training session, Cam suffers a head injury from an attack by someone in a goat costume. 

Being convinced by his agent Tom (played by Tim Heidecker), Cam participates in the combine anyway, but gets overwhelmed, lashes out at his brother and refuses to participate. Tom reveals to Cam that Isaiah is retiring from the San Antonio Saviors and wants to train Cam at a desert compound. Attending this camp would allow Cam to become a great quarterback but also start his descent into madness.

Isaiah’s training lasted six days and put Cam through some extremely tough tests. One of the tests was an accuracy/quickness test where any time he missed a throw, a different player would get hit in the head by a football out of a jug machine. Throughout the camp, he is given shots of Isaiah’s blood, which causes him to experience violent hallucinations that he believes is caused by his concussion. At one point, Cam gets attacked by a crazed fan, who he fights off and who Isaiah kills with little emotion.

Eventually, Cam is invited by Isaiah’s wife Elsie (played by Julia Fox) to meet the owners of the San Antonio Saviors. At that meeting, his doctor, Marco (played by Jim Jefferies), tries to convince Cam to leave the compound. Cam is then offered a red liquid to drink, which turns out to be more of Isaiah’s blood, and wakes up passed out in an ice bath hooked to a vial of, you guessed it, Isaiah’s blood. After escaping from the bath, Cam enters a room to find Isaiah watching tapes of cheering fans and reveals that he is part of manufactured GOATS who gain power from blood rituals. The two of them have a fight to determine who the GOAT is, with Cam beating Isaiah to death with a helmet.

Cam then finds his way onto a football field where he sees Elsie, the Saviors' owners and Tom dressed in animal masks and reveal to him that his father arranged for him to be the next GOAT. He refuses to sign the contract and, by himself, takes on and kills everyone there except for Tom, who is destroyed by an unidentified source. The movie ends with Cam, with blood across his body, walking into the desert.

The interesting thing about this movie and what made it so good is that it got better closer to the end. While that may seem common with some movies, this one embodies that motion. The action scenes get more intense, there are more jump scares and you feel more connected to the characters. It is also a good insight into how far people are willing to push young football players. Somewhere across the US, there is probably a young kid who is destined to be a great NFL athlete and is pushed to the limit by friends and family. They have felt how Cam feels and experience what he goes through during the movie: psychological and physical trauma all for the love of the game. This movie is great for those who love football, horror and those who want a thrill.