There are very few ways a person can experience brain trauma. It can happen in a car accident. It can happen if you participate in a contact sport like boxing or football. But there’s also a good chance you will experience it while watching the new horror film Him.

 

Directed by Justin Tipping under Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions, the film follows an up-and-coming football star who is invited to train at the remote residence of an aging quarterback for one week. If Peele’s involvement wasn’t enough of a giveaway, over the course of that week things get weird. What starts out as a series of strict exercises slowly turns into horrific hard knocks.

 

Coming straight off the I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot, Tyriq Withers stars as the young football player Cameron Cade. And despite playing a character who never feels fully fleshed out, he’s got the charisma and magnetic screen presence to keep you fully invested in the story. Withers may play the main character, but top billing goes to Marlon Wayans who plays the aging quarterback Isaiah White. 

 

Despite being most known for his sillier roles and movies, Wayans proves once again that he does take the craft seriously. While his heartbreaking performance in Requiem for a Dream remains his best, what he does here is honestly a close second. White is not a funny character. That doesn’t stop Wayans from using his humor or playfulness to lure both Cade and the audience in. Wayans toes the line between silly and serious so menacingly that even in a tense sequence where he pulls out a gun you won’t be able to predict how he uses it.

 

The way Wayans lends himself to the role so willingly might be awards-worthy if it wasn’t for the ambiguous and ridiculous script. It’s not just that the story is hard to understand. Despite a Hail Mary via some awful exposition in the film’s last five minutes, there are way too many ideas at play that it becomes too hard to focus on the end zone.

 

Is Cade’s stay all a hallucination sparked by a recent head injury? Is White a part of some sinister youth-stealing cult? Does Julia Fox know what movie she’s in? The answer to all those questions is simultaneously a resounding “yes” and “no.” However, at the same time it’s up to audience interpretation. If that doesn’t give you an idea of where the brain trauma comes from, perhaps Fox’s first scene where she both introduces herself as White’s wife and tells Cameron to stick a rock up his butthole will.

 

Traditionally, the power dynamic and generational difference in values between Cameron and Isaiah would be fertile ground for a good dramatic thriller. But Tipping and company sprinkle in some ambiguous supernatural elements and religious imagery. While admittedly creepy at times, each element feels shoehorned in to fit the Monkeypaw brand and lazily puts the onus on the viewer. That’s not to say the film lacks interesting ideas. With the team that both Cade and White are vying for being called the “Saviors”, there is some semblance of a statement on sports and its relationship with race. But between all the sloppily edited blood transfusions, montages with mysterious mascot and thermal x-ray sequences, it’s hard to tell the final score.

Throughout Him, characters constantly talk about what it means to be the “G.O.A.T.” or the greatest of all time. Yet for a film so obsessed with understanding what it means to be truly great, it ironically misses the mark on what is even remotely good. On paper, Him has all the ingredients for a winning play. Yet neither Jordan Peele’s blessing or a top-tier performance from Marlon Wayans can save this messy and misguided genre film from missing the goal post.