Most of us have, at one time or another, dreamed of what it would be like to be a superstar, but Hollywood usually reminds us there’s always a dark side to fame. The trailer for HIM, the latest horror from Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions, makes a pretty good case that wishing for football stardom is… well, a bit of a monkey’s paw. From the intense pressure of chasing greatness to the actual physical toll the game takes on the body—not to mention all the weird, cult-like shit going down—director Justin Tipping makes being a football star look pretty scary.
The HIM trailer trades in blood and quasi-religious imagery: We see Cameron disoriented at a long, Last Supper-esque table; he seems to encounter some devils in the desert and gets assaulted by a satanic figure on the field; and at the end of the trailer he raises both arms in a mimicry of Christ on the cross. But he’s standing in the middle of a pentagram when he does it, so the effect is, shall we say, unholy. You’ve probably heard football players thanking God above all else after winning the Super Bowl; it looks like Cameron’s blessings will come from a very different source. HIM premieres in theaters on September 19.Â
