The Religion of Football

            When I first saw the trailer for Him, I thought that it looked awful, and I was uninterested in it. Then there were so many trailers for it that it wore me down. I slowly started to want to see it. I mean it had Jordan Peele’s name attached to it, so how bad can it be? He has become one of the marquee names in horror, he will not attach his name to anything poor, right? Plus it is football season, and the weather is starting to feel like Fall, so it is the perfect time for a football horror.

            Cameron Cade is the top prospect, and he has been working his whole life for a chance to play in the league, just like his dad wanted for him. On his favorite team, Isaih White is potentially looking to retire, so if the stars align, Cade could take over for his favorite player on his favorite team, the only problem is Cade is going to go too early in the draft, but one night, when Cade is out practicing at his old high school field, he gets bashed in the head.

            The head injury is so bad that Cade’s stock falls, but he gets a call from White asking him to come and workout at his facility, and if he does well, White will tell the Saviors to draft him. Of course, Cade accepts the offer. White’s facility is out in the middle of nowhere in the desert, but he still has diehard fans on the outskirts who are not happy to see Cade pull up, because they think White is the best, and it only gets weirder from there.

            Initially this seems like a great opportunity, but then the tests White puts Cade through become more intense and some are odd. There are blood infusions being done, the drills are brutal, and White starts to seem like he has lost his sanity. In one of the drills, if a receiver drops Cade’s pass, another receiver gets a football to the face from a pass machine, and so many passes are dropped, which lead to this poor man’s face being bloodied and swollen. Then despite having a head injury, White encourages Cade to use his head and fight back in a drill, but each time, Cade rises to the occasion no matter how unhinged the ask, so he gets offered the job, but will he take it?

            I am assuming the larger point of this movie is that it is trying to explain that football is bad for the brain. Playing has some serious consequences, and a person does not even have to have a long career to be negatively affected. All it takes is one bad concussion to receive some of the negative effects, but some football players get them repeatedly, and this is what leads to CTE and more debilitating psychological issues. Some players have even been so affected by the aftereffects football has had on their body that they have committed suicide, like Junior Seau, whose suicide is credited to CTE.

            This is a very serious topic to undertake, but this was not a very serious movie, so although I think that the metaphor was made, I do not know if this was the right messenger. The movie was very over the top in almost every way. Their language is ridiculous. The way they talk about wanting to be the greatest of all time sounds so cheesy, and the opening scene with his family was also too much. White breaks his leg on a game winning touchdown, and the bone in his leg is sticking out. After seeing this, Cade’s dad tells Cade that is how he should act. He should be willing to sacrifice everything for greatness. No guts, no glory, as he says.

              These sayings and ideals are highly associated with football. They have the stereotype of being over the top in their toughness. If you listen to retired football players talk, especially those who retired in the 2010s, they talk about being shot up with Toradol and pain killers so that they could play through anything. Although they did not exactly have those drugs in this movie, it was alluded to in a way. White would get blood infusions, and they would give Cade them as well, and there was also a syringe with a person shrugging on it, that they would inject him with as a cure all.

            My other read on this film is that it is about the religion of football. They literally make this a cult movie. There are the fans camped out in the desert just to be close to White’s compound, and at one point, they even break in to try and kill Cade, because they do not want him to be the next coming to use religious terminology. They also use the consumption of blood in this movie as well just like communion in Christianity, and the doing of rituals is mentioned as well. They even have a moment where Cade is in a recreation of the final supper painting.

The final scene is the most ritualistic of them all. They decide to accept Cade into their cult after he defeated their previous messiah. He just has to go through their ritual and sign his life away. The leaders wear eccentric outfits, and they tell him that he has been groomed for this since he was a young child, but now Cade decides that he does not want this burden. It was his dad’s dream not his. So instead of him being a part of the sacrifice, he uses the other members as the sacrifice, and while he slaughters them one of them is in the shape of a cross. So they really try to hit the audience over the head with this comparison.

So in the real world, every weekend for about half of the year people wake up on Saturday and/or Sunday, and they go through different rituals to promote luck for their team, and they go to their chosen places of “worship,” which could be the stadium, a bar, the couch, or a friend’s house. They even wear specific clothes to help them get into the spirit. People even eat special foods every week and drink specific things because their team is playing. In a way, it is like a religion. Many of these players are venerated members of a fan’s life. They might not worship them per say, but they do hold them in high esteem.

There are two aspects of this movie that were good and kept me engaged. The first is the acting of Marlon Waynes as White and Tyriq Withers as Cade. They had excellent chemistry and despite the story being convoluted they kept it glued together. The second aspect is the style. The movie looked great. They even did some interesting effects like the x-ray. There would be some big hits on and off the football field, and they would show the effects of the hits with the x-ray camera. It was not my favorite, but it was something different, and I always appreciate that.

My one sentence review on Instagram was: This was bad, but I was captivated by its lunacy! I stand by this. It was not a good movie, but I did have a lot of fun watching it. I do not really know who this movie is for. I feel like lovers of weird horror might be thrown by the football story, and football lovers might be thrown by the horror element. I think it could be big with teens, but it is rated R. We will see how it does at the box office. I think it will take the number 1 spot, but it felt like they spent a ton on advertising, and I do not think it will reach the heights they want, especially with poor word of mouth. 2 Stars. Maybe watch it?