Him Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Him Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Justin Dekker November 18, 2025

Produced by Jordan Peele ('Get Out', 'Us'), 'Him' arrives on Blu-ray disc courtesy of Universal. The film stars Tyriq Withers ('I Know What You Did Last Summer (2025)') as a young man hoping to make it as a professional football player, alongside Marlon Wayans ('Dungeons & Dragons') and Julia Fox ('Uncut Gems'). The disc features impressive technical merits and an interesting mix of on-disc supplemental features. A slipcover, and a Digital Code redeemable via Movies Anywhere are also included.

Sports movies are wildly popular. In line with the overall size of the fan-base of the sports, baseball and football movies are rather commonplace, with several of their number, such as Major League, Field of Dreams, Rudy, and Any Given Sunday being among some of the most beloved films of the modern era. Even sports like ice skating, golf, gymnastics, and bowling have had their share of film focus. But for all of these films, from Ice Castles to The Bronze, while they're eager and willing to plumb the romantic, comedic, and dramatic depths of their characters and their story arcs, few marry sports with horror. Certainly, there are horror films that have sports-themed deaths such as the high school horror film Graduation Day. Putting horror more firmly in to the world of sports, Fatal Games sees Olympic hopefuls meet untimely ends, and the health conscious need never again be concerned with BMI after spending time working out in Death Spa. Even bowling has been represented in proper horror, with the rough and graphic Gutterballs delivering a bloody body count. But strangely, football, an American obsession where many a game sees a player carted off the field as the result of a gruesome injury or violent hit, has somehow escaped a true horror treatment. The Jordan Peele produced Him aims to remedy that situation.

Football seems ripe for the kind of body horror that fills Him's roster. In decades prior, broadcasters took an almost ghoulish delight in replaying horrible injuries and viewers would witness concussions, sprains, fractures, and breaking bones again and again, often seen in excruciating detail thanks to slow-motion, and accompanied by increasing amounts of commentary. Once the game had concluded, those same moments would migrate to the various post-game shows where viewers would relive those horrific moments again. And again. Lucky players returned the field quickly, while others saw their seasons or even their careers ended due to the violence of the game. One of those horrific injuries that prompted a change was that suffered by Joe Theismann in 1985, when a hit he received resulted in a compound fracture of the tibia and fibula. The 2009 film Surrogates, a film based on Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele's graphic novel, postulated, among other things, a solution for the situation, whereby football players would essentially be replaced by robots, enabling the continuation and violence of the game while eliminating its human cost. While that didn't come to pass in 2017 as it did in the film, steps have been taken to modify not only the players' protective gear, but also changing rules and refereeing in the name of increasing player safety while maintaining the overall physicality and excitement in America's most popular professional sport. Broadcasting, too, has evolved, with serious injuries often only receiving one replay at best before the cameras and commentators find other areas of focus. Him, however, doesn't soften anything, never looks away, and never blinks as it injects as much horror as it can into American football, even though the film never truly makes it all the way to a game.

The disorientation begins almost immediately. A young boy is watching the family favorite team, the Saviors, when a terrible injury befalls their quarterback Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka). The young boy's father floods him with a torrent of toxic masculinity as he promotes the "next man up" mentality and questioning the grade-schooler's toughness. By the time the scene ends, both father and son are screaming. Why are they this invested? Why does the youth feel the future of the franchise depends on him? Jumping forward, the young boy is now a young man, and Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers) is about to participate in pro-football tryouts, where success opens the door to fame and wealth, while failure upends renders moot years of hard work and sacrifice. When a seemingly random attack leaves him with a serious head injury, all seems to be lost until eight-time champ White invites him to workout at his compound.

The arrival at White's compound doesn't go as expected, as he's first accosted by an angry fan, and then summarily deposited outside White's bizarre home which is situated in a sterile, almost alien desert-scape. As he walks to the door, the visual created is that of a man re-entering the womb. The symbolism here is tough to miss, and the viewer assumes that when he emerges he'll be reborn as something different than what he was when he entered. But even getting into the building doesn't proceed normally. He's not greeted at the door. After he lets himself in, he finds White inexplicably working with animal hides, and later, finds White's wife doing something even stranger. Cam is as confused and unsettled as the viewer is. The home's harsh and sterile concrete construction offers little comfort, and feels repurposed from a building that wasn't crafted for human habitation. In this strange space, Cam is cut off from his mother and his girlfriend specifically, and the outside world in general. Everyone he sees and talks to, and everything he does or ingests will be dictated by White. He may have come from little, but he now has nothing.

Though what the film has shown up to this point bounces between confusing and unsettling, once training begins, horror is increasingly amplified through the score, the cinematography, and the on-screen action. Cam is repeatedly placed in physically and psychologically trying situations. As the camera frequently returns to the head injury Cam suffered, the viewer is left uncertain what they're seeing is actually transpiring, . As the film is experienced from Cam's perspective, this causes the viewer to question whether what is seen is real or simply an hallucination. After several viewings, I'm still not entirely sure. The disorientation Cam feels as a result of the sudden and unexpected violence of his time with White parallels the disorientation he would feel with the sudden and dramatic increase not only in his fame but his wealth should he become a franchise quarterback, especially considering his extremely modest roots. Occult overtones and themes enter into the equation here as well, which could either be viewed as confirmation of the sinister nature of the goings on, or as proof of Cam's deteriorating mental state as a result of his head injury. The fact that this remains difficult to nail down for the duration of the film is, I feel, to its credit. The one thing that is made abundantly clear though, regardless of our hero's mental state and his reliability, is that the owners are enriched through the physical destruction of their stars, most of whom come from very little (comparatively), and are enticed into a deal with the devil with the promise of untold riches. The cheerleaders are likewise little more than pieces of meat. Flaunted for their sex appeal, their writhing and dancing bodies as bared as possible, all the while their faces are muted to the point of irrelevance and anonymity. It's their flesh that matters, not the women themselves. The most concrete evidence in favor of the events not necessarily being entirely a product of Cade's head injury is White's success. The compound fracture White suffers as the film opens is eerily similar to Theismann's. But whereas that injury ended Theismann's career, White would not only return to the field of play, he would go on to win an astonishing eight championships. It's the first hint that Him truly has something supernatural up its sleeve. Indeed, the film juggles a great deal aside from football.

While the film's focus is on the potential transition of power from the skilled and decorated veteran franchise player to his anointed replacement, and as such the film spends almost all of its time with Cam, Marlon Wayans' portrayal of Isaiah White is inspired and is the highlight of the film. I first became aware of Wayans due to his participation in the series "In Living Color" which was created by his brother Keenan Ivory Wayans. The show is/was sometimes strangely confused with the band Living Colour which was popular around the same time. Marlon Wayans' comedic skills have never been in question, though at times the overall result of some of the films in which he has appeared have not always met expectations. Regardless of how one feels about this film overall, though, his villainous/demonic turn as Isaiah White is undeniably superb. His understanding of comedic timing enables him to effectively deliver the diametric opposite with equal ease, shifting from normal to dangerous to unhinged in an instant. And before his escalating performance could tread anywhere near the territory of camp, he is able to curtail his menace and shift back to something that is read as normal and nonthreatening. It not only provides Wayans with numerous places to go with his performance, it also further unsettles the viewer as we don't know what to expect from his character from one situation to the next. Additionally, if Isaiah can sometimes be perceived as normal, it also underscores and enhances the potential untrustworthiness of Cam adding to the viewer's confusion, disorientation, and ultimately, horror. Hopefully Wayans will go down this path again in the future.

Him Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Him looks very good in motion The AVC-encoded 1080p transfer is presented in its original aspect ratios of 2.39:1 and 1.78:1. The feature was filmed using an Arri Alexa 35, a Red Komodo, and a Teledyne FLIR T1020. Grain was added during the final grade and provides a pleasing filmic look. The image has an extremely high-level of detail. As Cam practices, the blades of the artificial and natural turf are distinguishable, and beads of sweat are plainly observable on his face. The cast's faces are realistically described with fine lines and wrinkles, and cosmetics make-up worn by female characters are easily observable. So too are stubble and more established facial hair styles. Fabrics display a similar level of lifelike textures, as does the all-important football. Colors are nicely saturated within the film's palette, which has been dialed back a bit from a truly real-world appearance. The film is, by nature, quite dark. Blacks are deep, though crush can be an issue. Still, it's an solid transfer overall.

Him Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Dolby Atmos track is immersive from the very start. Jets soar above the viewer as they perform a showy flyover that leaves red, white, and blue trails over those assembled in the packed stadium to take in the USFF's Championship LXVII. As they fly away into the distance, they are quickly replaced with the triumphant theme music of the event's broadcast, with a rousing mix of horns and percussion enveloping the viewer. The mix diminishes (briefly) as action shifts to young Cameron, becoming front-heavy and shallow, reflective of the modest viewing environment of the Cade family home. As both parents and child psyche themselves up for the game, the emotional orchestral and choral score builds, once again filling the stage. Voices are distinct, and strings are alternately delicate and powerfully supported by booming drums. Bass is satisfyingly deep, aiding both the hip-hop-infused score elements and the film's frequent violence, slamming doors, and gunfire. Hits are wince-inducing, music is alternately jarring, rousing, and suspenseful, and immersion is near-constant and directionality is spot-on. It's a stand-out track.

Him Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Him has been provided with a commendable mix of on-disc supplemental features as detailed below.

• Alternate Ending: Zay's Nightmare (2:13) - This dark scene shows what might have been. It's the source of screenshot #6.

• Deleted End Credits Scene (1:07) - "Food or Freedom"

• Deleted Scenes (13:19) - Five deleted scenes are included: "Cheers", Don't be a Mascot", The Publicist", "Fantasy Football", and "Cam's Discovery".

• Becoming Them (9:07) - Learn how Withers and Wayans transformed themselves into the athletes they portray in the film.

• The Sport of Filmmaking (10:10) - This feature gives fans a look at how the film was crafted.

• Anatomy of a Scene (4:25) - "A Diabolical Game of Catch"

• Anatomy of a Scene (4:53) - "Rebirth"

• Hymns of a G.O.A.T. (4;36) - Composer Bobby Krlic details his methods of creating tension and terror through his score.

• Feature Commentary - Director/Co-writer Justin Tipping provides viewers an enjoyable and informative listening experience that provides a great amount of detail on the production, his inspirations for hat made it to the screen, costuming, set decoration, the stars, and other topics. He's occasionally silent, but not for very long. It's a great insight into his vision for the project and its execution.

Him Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Over its runtime, Him throws a number of balls in the air. While it manages to juggle many of them, some hit the ground only to occasionally bounce back up into the film's field of vision. At it's heart, the (American) football body horror elements succeed, due to Wayans' performance and the the infusion of the supernatural/Satanic elements. When viewed in through the lens of Cade's head injury and his potential unreliability, the film is unsettling and disturbing. The comments on sports culture in relation to fans, child athletes, and their parents, are as worrisome as they are valid, but unfortunately there simply isn't enough time to explore them all in a wholly satisfying manner. Still, at its core, the horror remains. The Blu-ray disc boasts impressive technical merits and for fans of the leads (particularly Wayans), or the film, Him comes recommended.