(I was working on this post a few weeks ago but never finished it. I decided today that I am just going to publish this post even if it is imperfect.)
Recently, Monkeypaw Productions and Universal Pictures came out with a new trailer for the sports horror film, HIM. I saw the teaser trailer and it looked pretty gnarly. I am a scaredy-cat, though, and part of me thinks that I only like to listen to the horror movie trailers while closing my eyes for the overstimulation of the trailers–the noises, the jump scares, the demonic voices–without actually watching the visuals. I don’t know why I keep doing it though. Honestly, I talked with my dad about it and he told me that I don’t need to watch scary movies (he doesn’t either because he knows it is something he isn’t interested in watching) because he knows that I am a sensitive person who doesn’t like a ton of gore and jump scares.
At first I thought HIM was directed by Jordan Peele but I saw on a lot of Reddit comments that he is the producer, not the director. The actual director of HIM is Justin Tipping. I’m not familiar with his work, but from watching the trailer I am guessing the theaters are going to be pretty packed. I might be too much of a wimp to see it, though. The trailer made me think about other movies I’ve seen where these competitive (and for the most part, young and impressionable) people meet these hardcore, sadistic instructors who not only push them to their limits, but also bring out the characters’ dark sides. In Black Swan, which is a psychological horror film, Nina is this sweet girl but a total perfectionist who goes to great lengths to win the role as the Black Swan. She is up against this other young woman who is just as talented as she is, and Nina descends into madness as she trains and trains to win the role as the Black Swan in Swan Lake. Honestly, I should have followed my gut instinct and not watched that movie because again, I am not great with watching horror movies and the content I watch sticks in my head forever. But it did make me reflect on my own perfectionism, and even though it was a fictional film, it showed me that perfectionism can be dangerous if setting high standards drives you to harm your body and lash out at others. I have been in that dark place of perfectionism before as a musician who just wanted to get into a top prestigious orchestra, and boy am I glad I took a break and started playing my cello for fun again, because I was losing my shit over a fucking section cello position.
The HIM trailer begs the question: what is someone willing to sacrifice to be number 1 in their field? The main character, Cameron, wants to be the GOAT (greatest of all time), but when he meets his idol, Isaiah White, who is a retired football legend, and starts training at his compound, the training regimen that Isaiah puts Cameron through ends up being sadistic, and, quite frankly, satanic. I watched a lot of the reaction videos to the trailer and from people’s reactions, it looks like it is going to be a pretty graphic film. I didn’t watch the part where Cameron has to throw footballs at several guys, but from hearing the sound effects of the guys having the footballs smashed into their faces (and seeing the people in the reaction videos cringe in disgust during that scene) I was like, “Okay, yeah, I just have to accept that I won’t be able to stomach violent movies like this.” The poster already looked pretty bloody. It shows Cameron all bloody and his arms outstretched like he is Jesus Christ on the crucifix. I did love the music in the trailer, though. It reminded me of the music in the trailer for Whiplash, which, even though it is a drama, is pretty horrific because the jazz band leader, Fletcher, throws chairs at his students, screams at them and shouts homophobic and outdated ethnic slurs at them. Andrew really wants to be in his jazz band, but Fletcher ends up driving Andrew to extreme stress. Andrew was already a perfectionist, but Fletcher bullied him and made him think that to be the greatest drummer of all time, he had to push himself beyond his limits to the point where Andrew could have ended up in the emergency room with all of the injuries he sustained from playing the drums until his hands bled and that car accident he got into. Watching the HIM trailer reminded me a lot of the movie Whiplash, because it shows how this abusive jazz band leader pushes his students, in particular Andrew, to extremes. Fletcher, the band leader, at one point in the movie says that the worst thing someone can say to someone else is “Good job.” Even though Whiplash and HIM are different genres of movie, the former being a drama and the latter being a horror movie, both these movies seem to show that while it’s okay to want to be the best, it’s easy to let success go to your head to the point where you tear other people down and resort to self-destructive methods to achieve that success. I would be so curious to see how professional football players feel about the movie HIM, because I read some of the reactions to Whiplash and a lot of jazz musicians were divided about how the movie inaccurately portrays what it’s like training at conservatory. To be fair, Damien Chazelle, the director, was only going off on a personal experience he had with a mean high school jazz teacher, so the movie definitely can’t speak for everyone’s experience working in jazz. And neither can Black Swan, because Nina is a fictional character and the movie is a psychological horror movie, not a documentary. Then again, I am neither a professional jazz musician nor a professional ballerina nor a professional football player, which is why, when HIM comes out, I would love to read any comments from professional football players or people who work in sports psychology or any sports-related fields about the film. I unfortunately won’t go see it because after seeing the movie Sinners, I reached my threshold for scary stuff and won’t be going to see anything scary any time soon.
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