How Director Justin Tipping Mixed Art, Nike Ads & Multiple Genres in His Singular Sports Horror Film “Him”
Supernatural sports horror film Him not only blends two hugely popular film genres but also draws inspiration from the art of Jeff Koons and Edward Hopper, as well as Nike ads from the 1990s—a blend of disparate influences that cohere into a singular cinematic experience.
Produced by visionary filmmaker Jordan Peele, a man who had made his own sui generis horror films, from Get Out to Us to Nope, Him is helmed by up-and-coming director Justin Tipping. Tipping’s film is centered on Atlanta‘s Tyriq Withers as Cameron “Cam” Cade, a star football player who suffers a potential career-ending injury but gets taken under the wing of legendary quarterback Isaiah White, played by Requiem for a Dream‘s Marlon Wayans. White promises a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to train with a titan of the sport; however, Cam’s dream shot at a comeback for the ages devolves into a proper nightmare. Withers and Wayans are joined by Julia Fox and comedians Tim Heidecker and Jim Jefferies in dramatic roles.
Here, Tipping, who also co-wrote the script with Zack Ackers and Skip Bronkie, explains how classic and contemporary art inspired Him, finding unique but perfect locations in New Mexico, and the creatives without whom he couldn’t have realized his vision.
Him melds two major genres that very rarely cross. Did you think it was overdue?
My head was just like, ‘Wait. You’re telling me that no one’s executed this before in this way?’ That immediate reaction was both terrifying and amazing. If it’s done right, you’re taking two very different languages and finding a way for them to have a conversation, and you create a new language out of it. There’s something inherently violent about American football itself. Its roots and the architecture of the game are intentionally analogous to militarism taking land, generals, soldiers, and a hierarchy. It felt like the body horror was already at play, so serving the horror fans in the Venn diagram felt natural and easy. It happens behind the scenes in the locker room. Even to recover, just getting an ice bath can be painful. We’re exploring the psychology of these athletes who strive to be the greatest, so a psychological horror film was the way to go as a metaphor.
Many of the visuals appear more rooted in art than in film, particularly the work of artists such as Jeffrey Koons, Edward Hopper, and Tam Joseph. It really comes through in the colors, tones, and use of light.
Absolutely, yes. I wish I could show you the original lookbook I put together. I was talking to Kira Kelly, our DP, and production designer, Jordan Ferrer, about pulling from fine art in terms of color palette and approach to the entire vision. We were also looking at some of the most stylish Nike ads, like the ’90s Freestyle campaign. Jonathan Glazer also made a Jordan ad that is slow motion, and it all dips to black. There was a very seductive marketing and advertising language that we wanted to take and subvert, but at the same time, speak to the iconography of horror language. It was channeling artists and saying, “Let’s find the most batsh*t crazy images that we can reference, whether they’re from the baroque period or more contemporary.” With the architecture, I was inspired by very specific brutalist styles. It was about trying to find a new, interesting way to take on the haunted house, or that there’s a monster in the house, and we don’t know where it is or who it is.
You shot this in Albuquerque, New Mexico. What was already there, and what did you create?
The beauty of shooting somewhere like Albuquerque, New Mexico, is that there are a lot of interiors and locations that haven’t been touched yet. It’s somewhat new, and there are still a lot of gems. Working with the location scout, the most random things started falling into place. I had this lookbook of brutalist architecture and cement-inspired things, and there happened to be a high school football field that was made out of cement with towering cement walls. I was just like, “Why does this exist? I don’t even understand the choices that the town made to use those materials and have it shaped like this.” It was exactly what I wanted to lean into. So I’m using that brutalist, weird high school football field for the field, but then, we also shot some of the interiors of White’s house in the hallways of the stadium. It was a very big puzzle to fit all this into the 30 days we had, but things like that made it work. I’m also a first-time studio director, and I think I have a lot to prove. They made it very clear, saying, “This is the sandbox.” It was a challenge, and it came down to having an amazing crew and a team that could do that.
Did you use a largely local crew? I recently spoke with Ari Aster, and he mentioned that New Mexico has an excellent infrastructure for film and TV.
We brought in our DP, our production designer, and our costume designer, but that was about it. We shot at the same time Ari Aster was filming Eddington. We also attended AFI at the same time, but he was a year ahead of me, and we edited our films at the same place as well. Anyway, there were so many things shooting there at the time that it was like, “Wow, this place is becoming the place to be,” and I can understand why. You can make it look like many different things, the seasons, and there’s a culture of artisans and artists.
They also offer generous incentives and tax breaks.
That was a motivating factor for the studio, but we would have never found some of the locations had we not been there. For instance, the exterior of the housing compound where they go is a space port. The state of New Mexico is leasing it to Virgin Galactic Atlantic. They were taking millionaires into space for five-minute flights, and that’s where they were launching them out of. It was bizarre shit where it’s like, ‘Why does this exist?’ You don’t get that anywhere else.
How did you come together with your DP, Kira Kelly?
She is one of those people who paints with light and is locked in. She can see things that other people don’t see when setting a frame. She was on a very short list of names and had experience shooting there. Kira also had all this experience shooting action, VFX, and her commercial reel is insane. We had the same vision, she spoke the same language, and she also had that documentary background. That was vital to capture this ESPN 30 for 30 sports movie feel and the handheld montage movements. It was very improvisational. Her attention to detail is amazing.
Dominique Dawson’s costume work for Him ranges from the practical to the fantastical. It’s a broad canvas from tinsel mascots inspired by folklore to performance sportswear.
She brought so much to this. We all knew, producers included, that a lot of this hinges on the costume design because they’re so central in the scenes. She even reached out to fine artists. There’s a Native American fine artist who did sculptural work, and she was like, “Yo, what if we got his pieces like the gloves and hat and added that to something we could source from a prop house.” These ideas and combinations all came from a very art-centric point of view. That did force us to come up with creative solutions. One of my favorite costume designs is the tinsel mascot. That was out of necessity because tinsel is cheap, but it is also exciting, because now people can maybe make it at home. She had relationships with Klutch Sports and Nike, but a lot of these scenes are really popped up and dark, so they were like, “Yeah, nope.” She would have to customize some of the sportswear, alter it, and do deep dives on the internet.
We can’t ignore the fact that Jordan Peele is a producer on this. What was his input in all of this?
He had a very gentle guiding hand, rather than being like, “Hey, I don’t like this or that.” I would get through a draft, then sit down with him one-on-one, and I could page through and say, “I’m having trouble here because if I undo this thread, then that thread does this, but the studio is blah, blah, blah.” He would also help me navigate how to address the studio without sacrificing too much of my vision, explain what they really mean, so that I can get the note behind the note. Also, being able to be like, “I have this crazy idea,” and having a sounding board in Jordan, being like, ‘That’s crazy. I love it. Also, this could be crazy?” It was a nice, creative tennis match where we could keep riffing, and there was no ego involved. It was getting into fun trouble, making movies.
Him is in theaters now.
