Football is America’s brutal and barbaric billion-dollar pastime, never more so than in Justin Tipping’s horror movie “Him,” which positions the sport as a bloodthirsty cult. But, we already knew that, right? We’ve long been aware that American football exploits the bodies of young men for profit and leaves them damaged and destroyed — America has just chosen to make that gruesome bargain in exchange for entertainment.

Tipping’s film follows the idea to its most horrific ends, and boasts an aesthetic that is as aggressive as the sport — watching it feels like taking a hit on the field, head ringing from the blunt-force imagery (conjured by cinematographer Kira Kelly) and concussive editing (from editor Taylor Joy Mason). But “Him” is a whole lot of style — and a very compelling star — in search of a meatier story that might have dived deeper into the horrors of football, and what it means to America. “Him” merely skims the surface, offering only provocation and suggestion.

The screenplay, by Tipping, Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie, follows a young college quarterback, Cameron Cade (Tyriq Withers), groomed since childhood to be the GOAT (greatest of all time), who is about to step into the spotlight, the weight of the world, and his family’s expectations, on his shoulders. Right before the combine, he’s attacked while practicing alone at night, suffering a brain injury that jeopardizes his moment. When he’s called for a secretive training camp with his football idol, Isaiah White (Marlon Wayans), he feels like his fortune has been saved, and he jumps at the chance to spend time at Zay’s desert compound.

A superstar who lives in the desert surrounded by crazed fans, who summons a young person under false pretenses and promises of success? It sounds like this year’s “Opus,” which explored the cult of personality in the music industry. “Him” is sharper, meaner and more attuned to contemporary cultural obsessions, like biohacking and self-optimization, but it also suffers from the same issues that “Opus” does, namely that the cult business is wildly underwritten.

Recently, there’s been a whole lot of cult imagery deployed in horror movies without enough cult logistics laid out. The screenplay presents football as a cult without much analysis beyond wealthy owners and obsessed fans; the horrific bit is Halloween costumes and fake blood, ultimately just theater, not a searching exploration of the destructive, extractive business of football. There are sports documentaries more harrowing than this.

There’s no ignoring the fact that Withers is indeed “him,” a rare male ingenue, and this is a star-making role, in a pair of white football pants covered in blood. He’s a truly appealing Final Guy in a horror movie — he was also the standout in this summer’s “I Know What You Did Last Summer” remake. But Cameron is ultimately a cipher, and a frustratingly opaque character. We never really know what he wants, and there are a few missing character beats in the climax to help us understand the choices that he makes.

Wayans plays Cameron’s mentor Zay as a father figure, coach, tormentor and prison guard. His up-and-down gaslighting of the boy keeps him unsteady, on purpose, and Wayans delivers a dynamite performance of a confusing character, who spouts indigenous wisdom and traditionalist tales out of both sides of his mouth. There’s one choice that could have been made with his character that would have made this all so much more plausible and satirical, but the writers zig when they could, or should, have zagged.

“Him” is predicated on interpreting sports aphorisms to their darkest ends. “No guts, no glory”? Let’s see what that means, literally. It’s an intriguing premise and sports, underutilized, are a ripe landscape for horror. But the film fails to deliver anything illuminating about masculinity, legacy, fathers and sons, and the pressure to succeed. It would be nice to see something that tries to crack open these ideas with a wider scope, rather than merely wrapping up idioms in a bloody bow.

But when the red, white and blue jet streams are flying through the sky behind Withers’ beautiful, bloodied face, it’s hard to resist the sheer power of this film’s bludgeoning style, which wants to cave your head in with image and music. This movie looks so good, it’s tempting to overlook things like character, story and theme. As a purely sensorial experience of sound and image, it’s sensational. As a searing examination of the body horrors of football, fandom and fame, it’s weak.

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'HIM'

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for strong bloody violence, language throughout, sexual material, nudity and some drug use)

Running time: 1:36

How to watch: In theaters Sept. 19

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