Of all the sports, football clearly lends itself best to horror. It’s a violent battle and requires players to do things to their bodies that no person would normally do. That’s why those players get paid so much, which then opens up a whole other can of worms. Those points may seem like obvious ways to evoke the horror genre, but it’s not something that happens very often. A horror sports movie? It’s unique.
Him, the new film from director Justin Tipping and producer Jordan Peele, embraces all those things. It follows a young college quarterback named Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers) who is mysteriously invited to train with his idol, a legendary quarterback named Isaiah White, played by Marlon Wayans. What Cameron soon finds out is that the price to pay to be the greatest of all time might not be something he’s willing to pay, but he may not have a choice.
The film is now in theaters, and io9 spoke to its director, Justin Tipping, all about it. We discussed that odd mashup of sports and horror as well as the team-up and collaboration with Jordan Peele. Tipping talked about adapting the film’s original script by Skip Bronkie and Zack Akers and exclusively confirmed to io9 that there is not an X-Men connection in there, no matter what we thought we saw. Read about all that and more below.
Germain Lussier, io9: I’m a huge sports movie fan so I was very excited to see your film. But I also know that sports movies and genre very rarely mix, and when they do, it’s usually sci-fi. Your Rollerballs. Your Real Steels. So what were your first thoughts when you realized you’re going to get the chance to make a sports horror movie, which is almost unprecedented?
Justin Tipping: I was so excited. I played sports my entire life, a bunch of sports. I got to college and was playing soccer, and halfway through, I definitely was like, “There’s no way.” I was the worst. It was such a ridiculous idea, but it was setting in. So I found film and then became a film projectionist, and found this new thing to put all the energy in. Cinephiled out, you know. So I had this base. I studied film theory, film analysis, and film history. And so I think that basis of film language and history, seeing something like this mashup, I want to take the catalog and the canons and was like, “Wait, there are no comps.” Like I can’t really point to a comp that is told in this way. So I honestly lit up like a kid in a candy store. Like, “Holy shit.”
What that means in a way is there’s a new language that was necessary to do something that’s never been done before. And then that’s exciting. And then you actually get it, and then you’re kind of terrified because you’re like, “Oh shit.” But I think it was the most rewarding thing because everyone involved in the creative process was like, “Yeah, this is going to be tough to crack.” And it was a constant calibration through every part of making this, from development, through shooting, through post, where it was just like one too many jokes from Tim Heidecker at any moment, or not enough camp here, or not enough nuance here, kind of threw the tonal ebb and flow off. So it was amazing and terrifying.
io9: Yeah. I imagine. Do you think the violent nature of football is crucial to making this? Like, maybe not this story, but could you imagine there is a soccer horror movie, a basketball, a baseball horror movie? Or is football just that right balance of messed up?
Tipping: I think having made this one, I could see a path forward for other sports. This one I felt, and told Jordan upon seeing this off the bat, this is perfect because the body horror is inherently built into the DNA of the game. Just the machismo, the ecstasy of victory, the agony of defeat. And these guys are very gladiator adjacent. And there’s a lot of economic narrative, and people just understand that very primal “Two guys smash.” So it lent itself to the perfect fit because of that. And once that was already working, and it’s really just how you lens it, or it’s what you want to show or not want to show of the game, and even the recovery of the athletes, is leaning into the body horror. That was like, “Okay, well, we’ve got that and we can always hang our hats on that.”
But for me, I really wanted to focus on the psycho horror because the psychology of what it takes and the psychology of these professional athletes that do this every week, knowing what they’re risking, knowing what’s on the line, and doing it anyway, what it takes to just push yourself to those limits, opened up a whole other Jacob’s Ladder, The Shining [thing]. But also, it’s a pretty eclectic, I was also making Tyriq watch Holy Mountain, the Jodorowsky. Then Luca [Guadagnino]’s Suspiria. Black Swan and Suspiria have that movement, [as well as] those supernatural elements. It pulls from a lot, I guess. And hitting that Venn diagram in the middle of the sweet spot where we’re servicing both somehow.
io9: Which you can absolutely see. Now, I know you came on board after Jordan and the Monkeypaw team had already found the original script. I’m wondering what changed the most from that initial script to what we finally see in theaters?
Tipping: The fundamental kind of Nosferatu elements are still there, with the old QB and the new training together. I think what shifted the most was all the visuals, the visual language. And it really, there was a structure shift where I think in the original draft, he was already drafted, and it was about them training for the season. And the biggest shift was, what if he was not yet drafted? What it did was kind of raise the stakes to become more of the Rudy or Friday Night Lights or classic sports drama where you have everything to lose and everything’s on the line. And I think it was that reframe that Monkeypaw [gave it] that’s more popcorny and a simplified understanding. It just reframed what was going to happen or what could happen.
io9: Right, and having seen the movie, I know what you mean. Though I will say as a huge fan of [the Kevin Costner movie] Draft Day, I would have liked to see a horror spin on Draft Day.
Tipping: Listen, there are things on the cutting room floor. Pages that I have that I did. Maybe one day I’ll show you.
io9: [Laughs] That would be awesome. Okay, so talk about working with Jordan. I read a little bit in the press notes about how you were so flattered that he had seen your first film and how surreal that was. But talk about him as a creative partner and what he brought to the film. What was it like working with him? What were his contributions?
Tipping: Having a filmmaker’s perspective was invaluable because he could come in after something I had done to be a bouncing board. We would sit down and actually page through scenes, and he could offer the point of view o,f like, “Well, what were you going for?” And then, “Oh, okay, well, what if?” And some of the most fun were those moments because it was like, “Oh, I can rally with somebody.” Like we were just playing tennis and it was like “What if this?” and “What if this?” and it was just a lot of “Yes anding” that could help me get to either a new idea or whatever it was.
It was like, “Well, I bet if you just made this one sentence that Jim Jeffries’ character says, but if you word it this way, that’s the zone.” And it’s just a word. Like, cutting the mom off when she’s like, “We’re all praying for…” instead of cutting her off anywhere else in that sentence. So he has a whole other brain that is unlike mine that services those genre beats on a level that I’m like, “Oh, I would have never thought that that word that the change that would affect the tone of a scene for the genre.”
And I think another example would be the final scene of the movie. I was like Charlie Day and that meme where he’s trying to figure everything out. I was like “Oh my God,” because the movie’s insane, really, and then it culminates there, and too many jokes from Tim, or like the wrong music or the wrong pacing, it would either go too camp or it would go too serious. So I remember presenting him three different cuts and losing my mind. And he’d watch all three and then go back and be like, “All right, if you really want that, I’m pretty sure you should try this, this, this. I’m gonna give you some notes.” And then I was like, “Okay, great.” And I go back and can do those notes.
And then we could rewatch it together until it was like, “Oh, gee, thank God.” That’s the benefit of having someone like Jordan Peele in my corner. I don’t think this movie has made it unless he’s had my back. Sometimes I laugh. I’m like, “I don’t know how I got away with this.”
io9: It’s pretty, pretty messed up. Okay, this might be wrong, and I’d be embarrassed, but I have to ask. When Cameron first arrives at the compound, in the lobby, you see all of Isaiah’s championship rings and stuff. Did I see Magneto’s helmet from X-Men in there? It’s on the bottom left corner of the door. Is that there, or did I project that?
Tipping: [beat] I wish.
io9: It really looks like it, but of course, you’ve seen the movie more than I have.
Tipping: I wish because I am a ’90s X-Men cartoon fan, and that makes me so happy. So I’m just gonna say yes.
io9: [Laughs] Okay. Perfect.
Tipping: But everything in there was evocative of war or some kind of game, so it might’ve been a gladiator.
io9: Yeah, that’s probably what it is, but it had a purple tone? Never mind. This is probably my last thing, but I love that in the movie it isn’t always clear what’s real and what’s not. So what was it like striking that balance and letting people know when it was real, when it wasn’t real, and how important that is throughout the film?
Tipping: That’s the perfect example of it being a constant calibration. I definitely pushed it too far at points, and it became bad confusion. And then sometimes I overcalibrate, and it was like, “All right, we all get it.” Now we’ve lost some of the intrigue. I went beat by beat, and I knew, in my heart of hearts and in our lore, what was and what wasn’t. So there would be things in the frame itself that would be left over or Easter egg-y and it was kind of like, “Well, look. If Reddit does their thing and they really investigate this, it points to XYZ.” But that’s how it should feel. It shouldn’t be obvious.
And look. I love shit like that. Jacob’s Ladder was a big influence on me. So any way that we could lean into the fun of having an unreliable narrator that we set up in that first 10 minutes, the more fun and mischief we could have. I was constantly trying to think of things to put in the frame. A lot of those things were just me on set, like putting on a leather head or throwing it to somebody. Like I had that thing on me the whole time.
io9: But not, not the Magneto helmet.
Him is now in theaters.
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