Movies like HIM

HIM enters the folk-horror lineage signaled by The Wicker Man and Midsommar, translating communal dread into the language of celebrity and athletic mythology. It borrows the tradition's appetite for ritual and isolation while relocating those motifs to a landscaped compound dominated by a charismatic sports icon. That lineage-minded framing immediately signals a return to concealed rites and social atmospherics rather than explicit gore, orienting the viewer toward cultural psychology over spectacle. Where the film departs from template is in its technical grammar: the drama is measured through tight-framing and handheld immediacy, a slow-burn pulse and occasional long-take choreography that privilege interior states over explanatory setpieces. The narrative stakes are filtered through a single-protagonist close-third perspective, which foregrounds neural vulnerability and the asymmetric power of mentorship. The compound's staged domesticity and influencer gloss operate as mise-en-place for escalating moral-unease, converting training sequences into quasi-ritual tests that pressure identity and agency. For folk-horror enthusiasts this is a disciplined reimagining rather than an outright pastiche: it foregrounds toxic mentorship, celebrity-cult psychology and rites of passage while asking how spectacle reshapes consent and belonging. The film lands as a layered genre hybrid — psychologically taut, formally attentive, and provocatively framed — offering fans a calibrated payoff when the mood pivots from admiration to unease. If you follow folk-horror for its social aftershocks, HIM delivers a precise, unsettling iteration of that tradition.