HIM director Justin Tipping says he knows he won't "necessarily satisfy everyone's ultimate, total wish" with the new horror movie's "wild" ending, but he can't imagine it wrapping up any other way.
Starring Tyriq Withers, Julia Fox, and Marlon Wayans, the film follows up-and-coming football star Cameron Cade, whose dreams of getting drafted into the NFL are dashed when he's randomly attacked just a few days before the league's scouting combine. His luck changes when he's invited to train at the remote compound of his idol, San Antonio Saviors quarterback Isaiah White – as Isaiah promises to present Cam as his future successor if he impresses. Not long after he arrives, though, Isaiah's insecurities threaten to turn the dream deal into a nightmare...
Major spoilers for the rest of HIM below! Proceed with caution if you've yet to see it and don't want to know anything that happens.
In the movie's final act, Isaiah kinda, sorta reveals to Cam that all those blood transfusions he's been doing during their time together are actually part of an age-old ritual, helping pass on the athleticism of history's football legends to the present-day "G.O.A.T". If Cam wants to take Isaiah's place and receive such gifts, he'll have to fight him to the death, which leads to a bloody battle between the two quarterbacks.
Cam winds up being the one to walk away from the brawl, having beaten Isaiah to death with a helmet. But he quickly learns he's not safe yet, when he exits the room with Isaiah's body and finds himself on a football field. There, Elsie, Isaiah's wife, his manager Tom, and the owners of the Saviors urge him to sign a contract and become the next G.O.A.T. officially, but Cam refuses and murders everyone but Tom. Tom can then be seen being dragged by an unseen force into a pentagram on the ground, before the camera cuts to Cam and you see Tom explode in the background.
From all the occult imagery, it's clear something demonic is going on, but HIM never explicitly spells out anything. "It's a fine, fine line to toe," Tipping – who co-wrote the film with Skip Bronkie and Zack Akers – tells GamesRadar+. "There were so many conversations, between the studio, [Jordan Peele's production company] Monkeypaw, and myself; I have about 300 different edits of that final scene. 'How much is too much? What's the right amount of explanation?' I don't think you'll necessarily satisfy everyone's ultimate, total wish because it's just so wild. But that was also kind of the point.
"Too many seconds on Julia, it went beyond camp. It's no longer Almodovar, it's becoming a parody in a way that's not in-step with the rest that came before. You have too many of Tim Heidecker's improvisational jokes, it goes too far one way. So it was all about trying to keep it in perspective, I guess," he adds. "The artifice was just made aware, and in a way, it's the same thing that we're kind of doing throughout with the humor, which is always having the balance. Hopefully the send-off matches the absurdity of the game we were examining in the first place."
HIM is in cinemas now. For more, check out our picks of the most exciting upcoming horror movies.
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