Recently, I have been recommending films that are 20 years old, and I believe that is because many movies nowadays seem too predictable or uninspired. A couple jump scares here, a few near misses there, but nothing that deserves to be on “Nico’s Need to See” list. That is until “Him” was released on Sept. 19, 2025.
I took my weekly trip to the movies to watch “Him,” the new Jordan Peele movie about a college football star with dreams to be the next ‘Greatest of All Time’. Jordan Peele has impressed me with movies like “Get Out” and “Us” ,but has also disappointed me with others like “Nope,” so naturally, I came into this watching a bit hesitantly. To say I was thoroughly impressed is a severe understatement. Never have I felt so hyped and ready to run headfirst into a wall for my dreams, all the while being completely on the edge of my seat, looking over at my friend with a million questions running through my mind. The loudest of all being, “what the heck is going on?”
Not only were emotions high in the theater, but the way “Him” was filmed deserves praise in of itself. The visual effects really emphasized the severity of the scenes. And the music, I think music plays a big part in every film, like make or break big, so when the film score does not capture the high stakes moment or heighten the emotion, it leaves the movie feeling lackluster. “Him” has a great soundtrack that made the theater feel as though we were in a club on a Saturday night and complimented the boisterous music with dead silence that felt like the mastering of the oxymoron that is the silent crescendo.
Marlon Wayans was an interesting choice to be in a horror movie, considering he usually stars in comedies like “White Chicks” and “Haunted House” he did a great job in having the intensity of someone who was willing to give it all up to be the best. I enjoyed his performance. Tyriq Withers also had a great, if not better, performance. He grounded the film by making sure the viewer was not the only person who felt like what was going was absolutely bizarre, although he continued, naturally, to be enticed into following his dream of being the greatest of all time.
One of the biggest appeals was to my competitive spirit, it tugged at my childhood dreams of being the best, the greatest to ever do it. For me, as a child, I wanted to be the best soccer player to ever touch a ball. Now, I aspire and practice to be the most gifted to ever pick up a pen and stain paper. Obviously overdramatized, exaggerated and in one of the most horrific ways possible, this movie shows the absolute extreme in what it would take to be the true greatest to ever do it and even more so, what it takes to be better than that. Immediately after watching the movie, I wish I could have snuck into the next viewing of the same movie just to rewatch it and catch whatever I may have missed but more importantly, to feel the incredible energy and unnerving eerie suspense of what is to come.
