HIM – Film Review by Elizabeth Mulloy “Now in Theaters”
Sports have been an essential part of humanity since the dawn of civilization. They can be brutal and violent, or they can be strategic and minimal, or they can be both. Whatever it is, sports are an essential pillar to humanity. So it amazes me that there has never been a horror film centered around sports, and I am not talking about a serial killer crashing a cheerleading summer camp. I am talking about the horror being centered on the brutality of sports, both the physical and psychological effects that high physical activity will have on someone. This horror has been largely unexplored, until now is Justin Tipping’s HIM.
We follow Cameron “Cam” Cade (Tyriq Withers), a rising quarterback who suffers a potentially career-ending injury after being attacked by a deranged fan. When all seems lost, Cam receives a lifeline when his hero, Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), offers to train him at his isolated desert compound. What starts off as a good training session, slowly turns into a nightmare which sends Cam down a disorienting rabbit hole that may cost him more than he ever bargained for.
From the very first frame, Justin Tipping stamps HIM with a clear directorial identity. It may not have been shot with IMAX in mind, but on the big screen it still feels massive. The cinematography is stunning, the editing cuts like a blade, and a score that practically vibrates through you. The chaos of football culture becomes all-consuming; every collision lands like it’s happening in your own body. Even if HIM isn’t your kind of movie, you can’t deny Tipping’s bold hand behind the camera. The problem is, no amount of style can fully mask just how tangled and uneven the script is.
For the first 45 minutes, HIM had me hooked. It teed up weighty ideas like the cult-like grip of sports, the toll of chasing greatness at the cost of body and mind, the sting of aging out, the danger of idolizing your heroes, toxic fandom, and the shadow of CTE hanging over football. On top of that, you’ve got Marlon Wayans delivering a blistering, electric performance and Tyriq Withers bringing a raw innocence that grounds the film. But for all that strong setup, HIM ultimately fumbles. The story spins its wheels, only to crash into an ending so baffling it left me more confused than moved. Sure, the message is clear, football as religion, athletic perfection as poison, but the film never digs deep enough, leaving the whole thing frustratingly surface-level.
Overall, HIM had all the makings of a truly original sports horror film. The direction is there, the performances hit hard but the paperthin script keeps it from reaching its full potential. Instead of delivering something unforgettable, it settles for flashes of greatness that never fully come together. Still, with its bold style and wild swings, I wouldn’t be surprised if HIM finds a cult following down the line.
My Rating: C+
The Ice Tower – Film Review by Elizabeth Mulloy – Opens October 3
When it comes to fairytales, they have become whitewashed over the centuries, stripping them of their darker elements. Yet over the past decade, there has been a resurgence of giving these fairytales back their darkness in films such as The Ugly Stepsister, Guillermo del Toro’sPinocchio, and Gretel & Hanzel. Another film that hopes to bring the darkness back to its story is the latest feature from Lucile Hadzihalilovic, The Ice Tower, a meta adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. After sitting on the film for several days, I am still trying to wrap my head around this eerie spell this film has cast upon me (complimentary).
We follow Jeanne (Clara Pacini), a runaway orphan living in the cold and isolated mountains of France during the late 1960s. One day as she seeks refuge in what she believes is an abandoned warehouse, only to discover that it is a film studio that is filming an adaptation of her favorite book, The Snow Queen. With crew members feeling pity for her, they cast her as an extra in the film. Eventually, she meets the lead actress Cristina (Marion Cotillard) who plays the infamous Snow Queen. Who immediately enthralls Jeanne as she is dazzling in sparkling white. Cristina takes Jeanne under her wing, what starts off as mentoring soon turns into a nightmare.
What struck me most about The Ice Tower was how deeply it leaned into the aura of a fairytale, similar to the lush and imaginative productions from Powell and Pressburger. The entire film operates within this whimsical, almost otherworldly register. Its cinematography is cloaked in icy pastels and a dreamlike haze. Its costume and production design steeped in ornate crystal detail that feels suspended between myth and reality. While its score weaves together a sense of wonder and unease. It is beautiful to look at, but the beauty here comes with a darker side, as if at any moment the shimmering surface might crack to reveal something far darker. That duality is what makes the film so compelling: the film acknowledges that every beloved fairytale carries within it shadows, cruelty, and danger lurking just beneath the enchantment.
At the heart of this story lies Jeanne, who becomes utterly captivated by the production. Not solely because of her lifelong obsession with The Snow Queen, but also because of her own loneliness and fragile naiveté. In that vulnerability that she finds Cristina utterly enthralling. Marion Cotillard’s Cristina is an icy marvel, commanding every frame with her cold, calculated demeanor. She is cruel without needing to raise her voice, magnetic without ever softening her demeanor, and in that balance lies her character’s haunting allure. Her gaze is mysterious, unreadable, and faintly sinister. Which draws both Jeanne and the audience into her orbit. And so Jeanne becomes the perfect victim, her yearning heart and restless imagination pulling her deeper into Cristina’s spell until she tumbles into a feverish delirium, where she is no longer able to distinguish reality from illusion.
At just under two hours, The Ice Tower often feels much longer, stretching time in the way many ambitious arthouse works do; testing patience as much as it rewards it. But that is part of its spell. It lingers, it haunts, it drifts between beauty and unease. Thus leaving you caught somewhere between fascination and disorientation. The Ice Tower may not be for everyone, but for those willing to surrender to its rhythms, it offers an experience that is impossible to shake.
My Rating: B
Coyotes – A Film Review by Elizabeth Mulloy – Opens October 3
With a title like Coyotes, and a synopsis that reads “a family trapped in their Hollywood Hills homes as they fight for survival when caught between a raging wildfire and a pack of savage coyotes”, you should not be expecting a cinematic masterpiece. What you should be expecting is a nature-gone-wild, midnight, B-movie flick that is so unashamedly stupid that it’s incredibly fun. And does Coyotes live up to that expectations? Oh hell yes.
This family has everything you could ever want. A beautiful home, endless wealth, and an adorable dog. However, despite these pleasantries, the family is deep in conflict. Scott (Justin Long), is consumed by his work as a comic book author. Chloe (Mila Harris), is going through the typical teenage angst phase. While Liv (Kate Bosworth), is caught in between, struggling to communicate between the parties. The family is in conflict and they know it. So when heavy winds and a power outage forces the family to shelter in place. However, despite being prepared for the worst, nothing could prepare them when a pack of savage coyotes decide this family is next on the menu.
Coyotes is at its best when it leans all the way into its absurdity. The premise alone, wild coyotes relentlessly stalking a family as if they’re the stars of a creature feature from the bargain bin sets the tone, but the film truly shines when it refuses to hold back. Moments like the family scrambling to hide or improvising a makeshift cage out of a baby’s playpen are so wonderfully over the top that you can’t help but laugh while also being caught up in the tension. The movie knows exactly what it is: a ridiculous, self-aware B-movie that doesn’t try to disguise its stupidity but instead embraces it with open arms. That awareness is what makes it fun. Once you surrender to its nonsense, once you accept that this isn’t high art but pure schlocky entertainment, the ride becomes surprisingly entertaining. It’s chaotic, silly, and more than a little unhinged, but that’s precisely why it works.
However, Coyotes completely loses its footing whenever it tries to shoehorn in this half-baked family drama about learning to be present and reconnecting with loved ones. It’s the kind of clunky emotional subplot you see tacked onto plenty of midnight movies, a way to pretend there’s depth so you might care about the characters beyond being fresh meat. But here it drags the entire film down. Instead of heightening the chaos, the drama feels awkward, obligatory, and distractingly out of place. I didn’t come to a movie called Coyotes for a lecture on family values. I came to see packs of rabid coyotes ripping faces off and gnawing on lungs, and every time the film swerves away from that delirious mayhem into forced sentimentality, the momentum screeches to a halt.
In the end, Coyotes delivers exactly what it promises, a knowingly dumb, gloriously self-aware nature-gone-wild B-movie. It’s not aiming for depth, and it doesn’t need to. The best way to approach it is to sit back, embrace the ridiculousness, and let the chaos wash over you. As far as midnight movies go, it’s a crowd-pleaser through and through.
My Rating: B-
The Smashing Machine – Film Review by Elizabeth Mulloy – Opens October 3
Sports biopics tend to run on autopilot. An athlete rises to fame through grit and determination, takes their first big loss, spirals into despair, nearly walks away from it all until their mentor swoops in with the obligatory pep talk, setting up the inevitable comeback victory. It’s a tried-and-true, crowd-pleasing formula. But Benny Safdie, making his solo directorial debut, ditches that playbook in his portrait of Mark Kerr, “The Smashing Machine.” Instead, he crafts something closer to an anti-biopic. The script may be thin, but the film compensates with its unvarnished, documentary-like approach and a career-best performance from Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
We follow Mark Kerr (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson), a wrestler making his mixed martial arts debut at the PRIDE Fighting Championships in Japan in 1997. He is at the peak of his career as he is riding a high wave of a winning streak. However, despite his success, Kerr is struggling with opioid addiction and has a high-maintenance girlfriend, Dawn (Emily Blunt). And now that he is in the big league’s he now must face the possibility of losing a fight in a fighting league where rules are more so guidelines. A challenge that he has never faced before.
Benny Safdie’s solo directorial debut is marked by a striking confidence. Leaning into a documentary style, he frames Mark Kerr’s life with a raw, almost voyeuristic eye. Each frame positions us as onlookers, sometimes outside the ring, sometimes just beyond the walls of his private life but never fully invited in as we are almost spying on him. The fights play out with the immediacy of a live broadcast, while the breakdowns feel captured from a discreet, paparazzi-like distance. This approach creates an odd emotional tension: intimate yet detached, as though we’re witnessing something we shouldn’t. That distance may keep us from fully knowing Kerr, but the strength of the performances, coupled with Safdie’s jagged blend of rock and jazz on the score, turns the film into a strangely hypnotic experience.
For years, I have always thought that Dwyane Johnson has the juice to deliver a truly great performance. He has shown hints of his range in Moana, Jumanji, Get Smart and in several other projects. However, due to either fear or typecasting, Johnson has been placed into this box where he has been playing a version of himself over the past decade. A macho-man action star that shows little range other than muscle. I have been wanting to see him break free of this typecasting for a while now, especially given that his fellow wrestling stars, Dave Bautista and John Cena, have broken out of their wrestling personas. And finally I feel like Johnson has finally gotten a role he can really sink his teeth into.
Despite being buried under make-up I was surprised how seamlessly Dwyane Johnson disappeared into becoming Mark Kerr. From the opening moments Johnson immediately disarms you with his softspoken, almost child-like nature. But once the bell rings, he shifts into a brutal force of nature, channeling his WWE past into something raw and unsettling. It’s the role he’s been waiting for. A portrait of a man wrestling not just opponents, but his own fragility, masculinity, and addiction. Awards attention may or may not follow, but what’s undeniable is that Johnson finally proves he can act.
The Smashing Machine left me genuinely surprised. The script may be undercooked and occasionally tangled, keeping us at arm’s length from its characters, but the film still lands as a compelling watch. Safdie establishes himself as a director with a clear, confident vision, and Johnson finally breaks free of his macho-man mold to deliver something startlingly genuine. MMA and wrestling fans will find plenty to savor here, but even for those outside that world, it remains a gripping and fascinating experience.
