An ultra-stylish and underrated thriller movie is available to watch now

Looking like a mix between Suspiria and a Nike ad, JOE interviewed the director of the stylish new film.

The movie tells the story of Cam (Tyriq Withers, I Know What You Did Last Summer), a young American football quarterback who is attacked by a stranger, suffering a head injury that endangers his career.

Still desperate to one day become a G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time) player, he accepts an offer from Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans, Scary Movie) - widely considered the current GOAT - to train with him for a week at his remote desert compound.

While there, a string of bizarre occurrences leaves Cam doubting his sanity and questioning whether his gracious host has his best interests in mind.

It must be noted that, despite Oscar-winner Peele's involvement and after several very exciting pre-release trailers, Him has garnered mixed-to-negative reviews from critics for the most part and currently holds a 31% Rotten Tomatoes score.

These less-than-favourable write-ups even led to its star, Marlon Wayans, taking to social media to post a very level-headed and thoughtful rebuttal, part of which read:

"I respect critics. Their job is to critique. I respect their work. It shapes our industry. But an opinion does not always mean it’s everyone’s opinion.

"Some movies are ahead of the curve. Innovation is not always embraced and art is to be interpreted and it’s subjective."

He also added: "So don’t take anyone’s opinion, just go see for yourself."

In the case of Him, JOE agrees with Wayans. Yes, we can understand some of the points raised in the less positive reviews - some of the horror elements are underbaked, sometimes the jump between recognisable human behaviour and the more phantasmagorical elements can feel jarring.

We'd argue, however, that there is lots about Him that make it well worth seeking out. For one, it is the first proper sports horror movie, and the two genres are better suited together than one might think.

But also, rising filmmaker Justin Tipping's direction is incredibly stylish. The film is full of images that are gorgeous to behold yet also fill viewers with unease.

Plus, the story is packed with interesting themes, with topics including the exploitation of sports players, the cult of celebrity and what people would sacrifice to be the best in their field.

Ahead of the release of Him, JOE had a wide-ranging conversation with Tipping over Zoom about his movie.

We began by asking him about the first meeting the director had with producer Jordan Peele. This was when Peele, fresh off a Best Screenplay Oscar win for his debut film Get Out, requested a meeting with Tipping, because he loved his debut, the excellent indie coming-of-age crime drama Kicks, so much.

Tipping recalls: "[Kicks] was my first feature out of film school and... I wasn't really sure about the reception or what it would bring. But having someone like [Peele] see you as an artist and believe in you, kind of gives you the confidence to continue.

"It was such a positive meeting," he also says, describing it as being "more filmmaker driven" and that it "felt like just two fans of cinema" talking about their experiences on their debuts, their favourite films and "why [they] do what [they] do".

Tipping left the meeting feeling like it was "inevitable" or only "a matter of time" before he would work with Peele's production company Monkeypaw, which produced Him.

"I think it was just clear that he appreciated that I had a point of view and a style, I suppose, that wasn't his, but that he appreciated," he adds.

"[Monkeypaw] were about to go out with Candyman. They had several things happening all at once. So, it was kind of like, whether it be a TV show or a movie, they wanted to keep me in the conversation.

While Monkeypaw were initially interested in Tipping working on their series Lovecraft Country, scheduling issues got in the way. Then, three years ago, Peele's company sent Tipping the Black List-winning script G.O.A.T. by Skip Bronkie and Zack Akers, which would ultimately transform into Him.

"I immediately jumped at the fact that I had never seen a mashup [between sports and horror] like that before," Tipping recalls. "That was very exciting and terrifying at the same time because there was no comp to really point to for at least the vision I had in my head. But it was also exciting to create a new language.

"I was an athlete my entire life. I played soccer till I got to college and realised I was never going to go to the English Premier League or anything. I quickly gave that up and found films, so it did feel like another collision of my two passions."

Peele was looking for a writer-director to build on the G.O.A.T. script and "make it their own". Tipping, who has a co-writing credit on Him, says that he and Peele had a lot of conversations about those changes to the initial Black List script.

He tells JOE: "When I actually finally got hired, there was already a new draft that Jordan had given notes on. So, the attack at the opening, a lot of these things were his brainchild.

"Then I was more so presenting thematically what I would want to explore.

"So I brought the idea of really coming at it through the lens of what happens when the athlete is the commodity... and if your body's your only capital, you're kind of disposable, and the horror that brings with it and that psychology of what it takes to be the greatest.

"I was coming at it from a psycho horror way, because I felt the body horror was inherent in the game.

"A lot of the violence, blood, needles, the recovery was me just bringing the horror fans sports in a different way and bringing the sports fans sports. It was a Venn diagram of both.

"So, like the X-ray vision [shots], that was just a visual language that I kind of inherited.

"Then the characterisations of Marlon's character, especially, and Tyriq's character - who they were, where they came from, and their emotional arcs - I kind of imbued that over everything.

"A part of the scripts that I knew I wanted to change was, in the original G.O.A.T., [Cam] was drafted already. I felt just removing that and having him not be drafted gave more stakes and therefore more opportunity to f**k with him."

When asked why sports is such an effective topic to build a horror movie around, lead actor Tyriq Withers - who actually played American football in college - told JOE in a Him junket: "You put your body through a certain level of rigour and fatigue to reach the end goal.

"I think you can explore that in a horror film, and it's heightened and it's exaggerated, especially in this film."

In terms of the visual style of Him, Tipping says he prepared a whopping 500-page visual deck full of his influences.

"The macro conversations were about doing a clash of high art/lower art. I was referencing Goya and [his painting] Saturn Devouring His Son, but then, how do you make that feel like a Nike football ad, and marry those two?" he recounts.

Tipping also says he wanted the film to begin like an episode of ESPN 30 for 30, establishing an almost "UFC fight story" about the two lead characters, before transforming once it gets to Isaiah's compound into "Suspiria or Italian horror".

He adds: "All of my references were pretty much in arthouse, really, other than the character arcs. With the character arcs, I was modelling after post-Vietnam films like Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, Marlon Brando, and exploring the descent to madness, and creating the monster, creating the perfect football player.

"The better he gets at football, the more violent he gets.

"Yeah, it was a lot of fine art references, a lot of The Shining, [David] Lynch, the uncanny valley of weird behaviour, but through the lens of the shiny marketability, the commerciality.

Laughing, Tipping also says: "I had Tyriq watch [the legendary '70s surrealist film by Alejandro Jodorowsky] The Holy Mountain before we shot this movie, and he was just like: 'What the f**k are we doing?"

That said, the filmmaker says finding the balance between creating an ominous off-kilter vibe, without leaning into horror so much that Cam would just leave Isaiah's compound, was "difficult".

"It was like a constant calibration," Tipping notes. "It was discovery in writing and then on set and then in the edit, where one too many choices in sound design would throw it too horror, too general jump scare, versus something's off and we just need to question reality enough but pull it back.

"So, a good example was [at the start when Cam is] in the hallway outside the combine watching the other quarterbacks. There's the man behind him who's doing his best Kubrick stand-up ape thing, and it's trying to get someone to feel like: 'Is this another attack? Is it a haunting?'

"I know we have the Monkeypaw world and the genre working for us already, but... he's just another fanatic who wants a signature. He's just out of breath.

"But finding that balance was really difficult, because it's such a bizarre tonal space that there aren't really many comps to, so you can't point to be like: 'It's gonna work, I swear.' There's a bit of blind faith in just letting me try to execute and show for proof of concept.

"A lot of it also came from just the pace and being abrupt and severe with the cuts, severe with the design, severe with the music, like very, very abrupt and unsettling. In a sense, with the editing, we're trying to gaslight an audience, the same way Marlon's character is gaslighting Tyriq's character, where you're kind of always in anticipation."

Even the critics who did not respond favourably to Him have praised Wayans' against-type turn as Isaiah, with the Scary Movie star managing to be funny, sinister and melancholic, sometimes all in one scene.

When JOE asks Tipping if he ever had doubts about casting Wayans - best known for comedies - in the villainous role, the director says he was "always confident" the actor would deliver.

"I believed it and wanted him, and I think he just needed the opportunity," the filmmaker told us.

"I knew from our conversations he had a wealth of experience just around celebrity, fame, excess and what it takes to be great. He's already a G.O.A.T.

"So, I'd rather do that and then get him into shape versus finding a built athlete and then pulling the performance out of them."

During a Him junket with JOE, Wayans - who comes from an acting dynasty - revealed that the horror thriller's dark depiction of a mentor/protégé relationship was what resonated with him most about the story.

"Nurturing, right? Your mentors," he said. "I've been lucky and very fortunate to have been raised by four legends in the industry. All were kind hands and were very nurturing.

"I can only imagine what it would be like if they were the opposite, if they felt threatened by me."

Withers, meanwhile, also told JOE that he believes Him is a film about grief.

He explained: "There's this quote that [Marlon's character] says; it's "surviving the death of who I used to be".

"That really resonated with me because it's a story about grief, both losing somebody - Cam lost his dad - but it's also losing oneself in the midst of chasing your dreams and holding on to who you truly are."

Many of the characters swirling around Cam and Isaiah are played by comedians and funny people like Jim Jefferies, Julia Fox and Tim Heidecker.

Tipping says this was intentional, with the undercurrent of comedy designed to disarm both Cam and the audience.

"Yes, I wanted it," the filmmaker admits, adding: "I love the idea of Tyriq being that one really grounded person and presence, and putting him in a circle around those personalities creates a fish out of water [effect].

"They're so strong and distinct, it's easier to go along with the con and seduction. It's like: 'Well, I guess if this is normal, and this is normalcy, then I guess I'm the weird one.'

"But at the same time... instead of using something like a shower scene and using sex in the classic horror sense where you set that up and then you introduce the knife to get the biggest reaction and illicit the biggest jump scare, I was trying to disarm everybody with the laughing.

"[This is so that] we would all keep going along this journey, even though it was getting more f****d up, probably worse for [Cam].

"I think European audiences will probably get that more, the dark humour in that."

Tipping says that what also helped him establish Him's off-kilter tone was the fact that the story is about famous sportspeople and the ultra wealthy, who don't live ordinary lives anyway.

He explains: "It was just so easy as soon as we all started looking around like: 'Wait, everyone just wears costumes and face paint anyway. These people show up and do this. This is all just ripped from the headlines.'

"I already knew in the zeitgeist, people are like: 'How does Tom Brady stay this young and how is he playing so long? How does LeBron do it? How do they do it?

"People are already throwing these ideas out, and people already know that billionaires take blood from young people in plasma to stay young.

"So it was definitely trying to exploit an audience's fears or theories, and in a very meta way to tell a story about exploitation."

Him is in Irish cinemas now.