Jets fly over a stadium, leaving trails of red, white and blue. Announcers and audience members yell uproariously as the Saviors take the football game at the cost of an injury to their quarterback. The camera moves back to a room adorned in memorabilia as a father tells his concerned son, “See, Cam, that’s what real men do. They sacrifice.”

At first, Justin Tipping’s “Him” seems like an average sports film. A quarterback, Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers), has always wanted to be the GOAT, but suffers a career-ending brain injury right before the event that could get him drafted into the NFL. 

But a typical sports flick doesn’t have our main character’s childhood idol coming to save him from his plight and show him what football is really about through one-on-one training. It sounds ideal at first, but as Cam soon comes to learn, “In this game, violence is rewarded.”

Throughout the torturous trials that follow, “Him” delivers a poignant message about the real sacrifices it takes to succeed in America’s bloodiest Sunday night pastime and establishes Mr. Tipping as a promising and extremely stylistic new voice in the horror genre.

The film’s greatest strength is its symbolism. As the viewer watches Isaiah “train” Cam to sacrifice everything by coercing him into brutally killing his teammates, they are not left with the fear  traditional horror promises, but with a simple message: The GOAT is not a person. They are a symbol, both for those who worship them and for the industrymen who profit off of them.  

While the film delivers its many messages very sharply, its methods of doing so can be hard to follow. The film’s pacing feels unrealistic and steep. For example, the idea of selling your soul for success very quickly goes from choosing to deprioritize your family to signing a contract given to you by a council of team managers donning devil horns and pigskin cloaks.

Ultimately, the film expands beyond psychological horror elements. The visuals go beyond blood, and use X-ray video to make brutality feel impactful. The sound captures the overwhelming nature of a stadium using live samples. The actors’ use of their own previous experiences in professional football provide more than a simple structure could.

Overall, what “Him” lacks in conventional merits is made up by the message it leaves to aspiring athletic stars and their viewers by proxy: “Don’t kill yourself for this job.”