Football, God, Family, and EVIL! “Him” reviewed! (Universal Pictures / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on December 3, 2025

“Him” Collector’s Edition Now Available from Universal Pictures!

Cameron Cade’s father has been firmly preparing his son to be a football GOAT since Cam was a young boy. Inspired by the 8-time champion Isaiah White, star quarterback of the Saviors, Cam had trained and played through the years and ranks to be the game’s next promising rising superstar athlete. When a mascot-dressed manic derails Cam with a head trauma-induced attack, Cam takes a step back from competing in the football showcase but receives hope when he receives an invitation from the Saviors to work with Isiah White at his isolated training camp deep in the desert. Before long, a dream-come-true turns into a terrifying nightmare as the training sessions go deeper into something far more sinister and Isiah’s greatness may be contributed to unnatural forces bound by limited contracts. How far and how much will Cam have to sacrifice to be the best football player ever and to live up to his idolized hero before the game and those who control it swallow his own soul.

Jordan Peele, once skit comedian with Keegan-Michael Key in “Key and Peele” turned provocative social commentary director of such films as “Get Out” and “Us,” produces the next potshot at cultural critiquing with 2025 released “Him,” a football themed psychological horror that puts sacrifice for the game over family, intensifies the pressures of equating performance with success, and a misguidance from fatherhood/mentorship that intends on grooming a young person into superstardom. “Him” is the sophomore feature length film for Justin Tipping who also cowrite the script along with Two-Up Productions cofounders Skip Bronkie and Zack Akers as the first major movie release for the company associated with Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions that not only produces his Peele’s own films but also invests into minority-driven projects, such as “The Candyman” remake, “Monkey Man” with Dev Patel, and Spike Lee’s the “BlacKKKlansman.”

At top bill of “Him’s” roster is an established comedian, writer, and producer with an even more well-established and famous last name. Marlon Wayans’s breakout project was the sketch comedy TV show “In Living Color” that also highlighted and rocketed the career of Jamie Fox and Jim Carrey but was also considered a family affair as Marlon’s siblings, Shawn, Kim, Keenan Ivory and Damon Wayans, cohosted with him the African-American centric comedy show. In “Him,” Marlon plays the 8-time champion quarterback for a football team that is as venerated as his character Isiah White playing for the Saviors. Wayans, known for his comedic role stints in favorites “Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood,” “Scary Movie,” and “White Chicks,” has a surface scratched darker side to his onscreen personas that leave him no stranger to a role like Isaiah White that’s dispassionate yet ferocious – his drug addiction role in “A Requiem for a Dream” is one of those examples. Opposite Wayans is the strong, muscular facial features underneath soft, piercing eyes of Tyriq Withers. The then mid 20-year-old is in peak physical condition for his rising star quarterback Cameron Cade under the pressure cooker of family, agents, and a football league that expects greatness on every level. Withers’ recent principal parts in perceptively pointless and under-the-radar remakes of classic cult films, “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter is Dead” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” didn’t elevate the Florida born actor into the spotlight, preparing him for an upcoming lead in a more visible original psychological horror themed around one of America’s favorite sports, but Withers meets the challenge with a promising performance for his promising character that makes “Him” standout above the rest and being his biggest role of his career catalogue. Wayans and Withers battle out with testosterone trumping into a gray area of occultism that’s not so unlikely from the reality of professional sports. The principal leads are supported by an eclectic supporting cast of eccentric oddities of the isolated training camp with Julia Fox (“Presence”) as Isiah White’s fast-and-loose, high-end wife Elise, standup comedian Jim Jefferies as White’s personal athletic physician Marco with baggage regrets, Tom Heidecker (“Us”) as Cade’s hype manager Tom, Indira G. Wilson (“The Perfect Host”) as Cam’s mother, and Richard Lippert (“Scare Us”) as the saviors behind-the-scenes owner.

“Him” came and went from its theatrical run so fast it feels like only yesterday trailers were being played on commercial breaks and on online previews, denoting Justin Tipping’s movie offering not finding a significant audience for the anti-pro sports treatment of players message. That’s what “Him” powerfully engrosses with is an anti-football message of dog-eat-dog cruelty that cannibalizes itself for what’s best of the sport and discard those who give the sport it all once their eliteness has been completely emaciated, as if the sport is a vampire and drains their athleticism through the carnivorous canines of fans, team, and ownership. Tipping and his cowriters integrate religious and Roman motifs that relate the gridiron as Church or the blood of the GOAT coursing through another that offers divine playing sacrifice and supremacy while certain aspects of the film regard the football fields as coliseum with players being gladiators with even the finale reenacting scenes similar to that of “Gladiator.” Along with those strong imageries, iconographies, and representations, Tipping’s linear telling of the story feeds off the phantasmagory and being on the edge of experimental that, in turn, puts into question Cameron Cade’s reality as everything he experiences from the ominous weirdness pulsating his path forward in football to the macabre training and cultish indoctrinations of Isiah White’s desert training camp don’t come about until Cam’s whacked over the head with a long handled and ornate hammer. Then, the question becomes, is Cam in dead and a warped purgatory? Is Cam hallucinating? Or is Cam actually experiencing the darker side of a game he’s been bred to believe in and be the best at. All of those existential and surreal components overload “Him’s” highbrow and social commentary horror that will fly over the audiences’ head like pre-game ceremony fighter jets.

“Him” arrives onto a collector’s edition Blu-ray and digital combo set from Universal Pictures. The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, film is stored on a BD50, ensuring room for a visually and audibly stimulating tryout of pigskin piety. Infused darker tones of shadows, Brunswick greens, and plenty variations of brown from the football to the desert located training camp, there are a very few contrasting moments that embolden cinematographer Kira Kelly (“Skin in the Game”) to emerge out from the hefty draping shadows that obscure much of the compounding and confounding irrationality of the insular football fanaticisms. Kelly utilizes an array of long to closeup shots from different scenes or even the same scene to throw off the balance and provide depth when needed for the moment. In addition, the same moments can be implanted with a personal bubble of surrealism through Cameron’s perception of events, never leaving other characters to define the atmosphere or the behaviors that are inherently set by the principal lead character, who or who may not be suffering from an intense concussion untreated unintentionally by the internal turmoil of family politics. Detailed textures and skin tones have organic qualities, and the X-ray vision has seamless segue with all its intensified bone crunching hits. “Him” is presented in a widescreen 2.39:1 for an extra stretch of spherical sighted surroundings that work to enclose on Cameron the deeper he’s in with the mentor’s program as well as to fully embrace his destiny with obstinance in the grandest of finales. The Blu-ray has encoded four audio option a with English Dolby Atmos, a Dolby Virtual Speaker 2.0, a Spanish Dolby Digital Plus 7.1, and a French Dolby Digital 7.1. All options offer extended reach into the audio localization areas of the compressed, multiple channel formats, and even the DVS adds a little extra to throw sound inside a three-dimensional space which is important for “Him’s” haunting and bizarre oneiric structure. The Atmos provides more depth and richer lagniappe effort where it comes with Cameron’s perceptive discords of racing arguments and whispering inceptions. Dialogue is clean and clear throughout, and no issues imposed on The Haxan Cloak aka Bobby Krlic’s subtle descent of a score. English, French, and Spanish subtitles are available. Bonus contents include feature commentary with director Justin Tipping touching upon production areas and the cast to create his footprint as a movie artist, an alternate ending, a removed end credits scene, a handful of deleted scenes, two deconstruction of scenes on how they’re made, Becoming Them looks at Tyriq Withers and Marlon Wayans transformation into elite athletes, The Sport of Filmmaking featurette offers a behind-the-scenes look at production of “Him,” and the Hymns of a G.O.A.T. has composer Boby Krlic’s detailing the elements in creating his movie score for the film. The collector’s edition also comes with a digital code insert to stream or download from anywhere on any device. The physicality of the collector’s edition is more to the tune of a play fake that doesn’t allow the release to run with an overloaded package. Instead, Universal laterally passes with a cardboard slipcover with an embossed title for some smooth font texture. Instead, the standard VIVA case houses the same artwork as the slipcover without the raised lettering and the disc is translucently pressed with the title and film and format technical credits. “Him” has a runtime of 97 minutes, region A encoded playback, and is rated R for strong bloody violence, language, sexual material, nudity, and some drug use.

Last Rites: If you’ve ever thought professional sport players were commodities before, “Him” brings the blitz of putting football above it all by bringing divine blood, sweat, and tears into a cult of sadists and stardom.

“Him” Collector’s Edition Now Available from Universal Pictures!

May the EVIL Be With You! “Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker” reviewed! (Disney / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 17, 2020

The rebellion suffers lost after lost against the oppressive First Order and news that the evil Emperor Palpatine lives casts an even larger shadow of fear and hopelessness across the galaxy. As Fin and Poe Dameron continue running small strikes against imperial targets, Rey finalizes her training as a Jedi with the help of Princess Leia, but as Kyle Ren discovers the Sith coven and the existence of Palpatine, his desire to search and track down Rey grows stronger before releasing a new First Order fleet of Star Destroyers with the capabilities to destroy entire planets. The Force pulls at Rey, guiding her to face her most difficult challenge: the truth about her parents and lineage. Rey faces crossroads that will determine whether she will continue to fight for good or cave into her anger and fear that’ll inevitably lead to the dark side.

Star Wars? What is Star Wars doing being reviewed on a blog that mainly covers the schlocky low-budget horror scene and the occasional obscure and weird Sci-Fi arthouse film? And the fact that “The Rise of Skywalker” is a Disney film makes this writeup the first ever Disney review for ItsBlogginEvil. No, don’t fret. I’m not selling out my love for the gore, scream queens, and pint-sized productions for the mondo-glitzy, big budget Hollywood epics nor am I making a soft right turn into bloodless PG-13 commercial commodities, but, and this is a big atypical but, “Episode IX” needs to be heard from those outside on the fringes. “Episode IX” is perhaps the darkest film of the cross-generational saga alongside “Revenge of the Sith,” or at least a close second, and, so it be, Disney was gracious enough to provide us a Blu-ray review copy of the J.J. Abrams grand finale to an adventure that has trekked through 40 plus years of galaxy-conflict, saw countless different alien species, gave us more pew-pews than we could ever hope to hear, three different versions of Anakin Skywalker, and the phantasmic super powers of what is known as the Force, all of which is encompassed by a fascist, utilitarian power. Co-written with Abrams is “Argo” and “Justice League” writer Chris Terrio from a story co-written also by “Jurassic World’s” Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow.

“Episode IX” begins with Kylo Ren (“The Dead Don’t Die” and “BlacKkKlansman’s” Adam Driver) discovering a pyramid shaped device that’ll Mapquest his way to find the secret Sith location where a familiar evil figure from the past returns and has built a gigantic fleet over the last three decades. This time around, Kylo Ren’s less of a toddler in the throes of brain development as he’s embattled with guilt and choice. Adam Driver does nail the performance with solemnity in his last performance as the son of Leia and Han Solo. The story’s heroine, Rey (Daisy Ridley), is also facing internal conflict with self-discovery as the prospect of knowing who she is sets her on a quest to discover her ancestry and what she might find might blur the sides of good and evil. The young actress who had a number short films and one horror title under her belt (“Scrawl”) before skyrocketing into “Star Wars” mythology returns to Rey as a Jedi hot off the Leia training course and thrusted immediately into the Force’s subconscious dark star, shielding her from the truth for fear of what may come of it. While Ridley shines, the Rey character sprints from, at this point in the Saga, point M to point Z, jettisoning much of the internal grappling to a mere blip on the ship’s internal sensors. Rey also feels entirely infallible, thrusting her character beyond the limits of mortality by completely overshadowing not only Kylo Ren, but also Emperor Palpatine. The other two new to the “Star Wars” crew, Poe (“Ex Machina’s” Oscar Isaac) and Finn (“Pacific Rim: Uprising’s” John Boyega), received similar shaft treatment of reworked characters from the original trilogy, possessing nothing new to offer. Poe a watered down version of Han Solo, a hot shot pilot who doesn’t understand the concept that together him and his fellow rebellious friends can defeat anything that stands in front of them; Lando Calrissian had to educate him with a bit of heart-to-heart exposition. However, Finn is perhaps the biggest undercooked character who has an inkling of Force within him that always simmers to the surface, but nothing is definite, nothing’s explained, and nothing is provided to perhaps the best known minority character in all of “Star Wars” behind Lando. Lastly, and I know the character write is up long and might be a little drawn out, Abrams really botched Carrie Fisher’s Leia that worked in awkwardly unused footage of the Princes/General from previous films. The simple and bland rhetoric used when Leia’s having a “conversation” with Rey is nearly painful to stand as Rey pours from an emotional spigot and all Leia can be, responsively, is cold, blank, and superficial. Mark Hamill, Anthony Daniels, Naomi Ackie, Domhnall Gleeson, Richard E. Grant, Lupita Nyong’o, Joonas Suotamo, Kelly Marie Tran, Billy Dee Williams, Ian McDiarmid, Harrison Ford, and Greg Grunberg co-star.

I adore “Star Wars” as much as the next nerd who grew up between the first and second trilogy. The blending between science fiction, westerns, and samurai tropes speaks volumes on how engrained George Lucas made space come alive with larger-than-life gusto that appeased not only fans of space adventure and wonders, but also fans saturated inside the spaghetti westerns and those with an affinity for Akira Kurosawa films. Those genre bending tactics really brought the film community together to appreciate the novelly detailed miniatures that came to life and the eccentric, sometimes outlandish, characters like Han Solo, Jabba The Hunt, Boba Fett, and Leia in that scantily-clad slave girl bikini. Yet, “Episode IX” irks me, irks me hard, as the once innovate “Star Wars” has been placed into a bingo ball spinner to have it’s originality called out once again in one ginormous homage to see, again, the Emperor, who seems very high and mighty upon his throne of Sith muscle, pitted against a ragtag team of good doers and their champion quasi-Jedi who has to make a between benevolent freedom or a junta power. That’s not to say that “Episode IX” is a total sham of a finale. Fans will receive the totality of a “Star Wars” film complete with light saber clashes, space battles, and the beautiful, yet sometimes violent, different worlds that ships can hyper speed to in seconds. The visual and practical effects are bar-reached and awe-inspiring by means of thousands of ships clustered together, the dim-lit bars crowded with varied character creatures, and the speeders racing through canyons and sandpits become heart-pounding thrill rides of excitement. The introduction of new characters, like the amiable and smile-evoking bot technician Babu Frik, the former Poe co-spice trader and survivalist Zorii Bliss, and another ex-Storm Trooper, Jannah, forms that similarity bond with Finn, are new blood that delight when on screen. Yet, these new characters are shamefully underused as minuscule support that garners only a speck of adoring fandom but little else to the story’s plotline.

“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” comes home with a 2-disc Blu-ray and Digital Code release, sheathed inside a rigid slipcover, presented in 1080p, full high definition, widescreen, 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Video is top shelf quality of everything a “Star Wars” film should be with colors and details galore that are arranged purposefully and perfectly to aesthetically please a contrast against the bleakness of space. The extensive line textures are seriously sharp and along with the vast special effects professions who model, shape, and digitally imprint the liveliness into the work, but there are instances, such as on the Sith home world, where the visual effect of an arena filled with distantly scoped blurry Siths dampens the moment of Rey’s endmost consignment. It looked and felt cheap and didn’t properly convey’s Rey’s loneliness against all odds. The lossless English language 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio caters to every pew-pew blaster sound, every ship zipping through space with an engine-like exhaust, and every electrical discharge of a light saber humming in the throes of dual. The dialogue, and Chewbacca’s guttural growls, are effervescently prominent with a natural tone and not commingled by the other tracks, making “Episode IX” some of the best sound work to date in any “Star Wars” film. Capping off the Saga soundtrack with the familiar John Williams robust overtone and coursed throughout an engaging orchestra that moves in synth with story’s dynamics. The bonus feature disc includes an over two-hour documentary entitled “The Skywalker Legacy,” a full length feature of orgasm supplementary regarding “The Rise of Skywalker” and diving deep into the mythos of “Star Wars'” history. Other bonus material includes the mechanics of creating a speeder chase on the Pasaana world, shooting in Jordan to utilize it’s dessert location to create an alien planet, exploring the D-O ship that’s new to the franchise, an interview with Warwick Davis who returns to “Star Wars” to once again don an Ewok character along with his son Harrison, and a cavalier look at the otherworldly creatures and highlighting those who play the part of these beings. For many, the book of George Lucas’ “Star Wars” has been closed as the final episode completely arcs the Skywalker story. Yet, for a few who wish to explore more, “Star Wars” is sought to be an open to a means for other characters to be explored, such as with The Mandalorian,” and, just maybe, that cute Babu Frik. “The Rise of Skywalker” exited in a cliche fashion, a warp drive to an already established and tiresome rehash of circumstances, while only supplying a healthy demand of star power and intense action inside a rapturous package overflowing to the brim with too much content and too little substance.