DEVIL'S BARGAIN

DIRECTOR JUSTIN TIPPING REVEALS HOW HIS PERSONAL EXPERIENCES MADE HIM THE RIGHT PERSON TO TELL HIM

- WORDS: TARA BENNETT

FOR ANYONE WHO'S become desperately passionate about something in their life - be it career, improving their physique or just geeky collecting - very often a tipping point is met where the pursuit could easily devolve into obsession. If you've ever fallen down your own rabbit hole and maybe break into a cold sweat thinking about it, Justin Tipping wants you to know that he gets it, and he's got just the movie for you.

HIM is Tipping's second feature film, a psychological horror made in conjunction with Jordan Peele's Monkeypaw Productions. It was conceived by screenwriters Zack Akers and Skip Bronkie in their acclaimed script, originally titled Goat, whose premise revolved around a tense sports retreat, with an up-and-coming young athlete invited to train with an American football team's close-to-retirement star player. It was optioned by Peele's company in 2022; they brought in Tipping, who they'd met in 2017.

Tipping first burst onto Hollywood's radar in 2016 with his directorial debut Kicks, a film about an Oakland, California, teen who gets beaten and robbed for his vintage Air Jordans, then goes on a mission to get them back. Its success opened the door for Tipping to direct on multiple TV dramas, from Run The World to Joe vs Carole, until the pandemic shut everything down and afforded him a much-needed creative reset.

“Kicks and then TV streaming all had taken off, and I had student loans and all the things,” Tipping explains to SFX about his reasons for grinding from series to series. “By the last show I did, I just got burnt out. Myself and, like, the entire world was having a unified moment of questioning, how do we spend our time? We're reminded of our mortality and all those things, and I ended up taking some time off. It was the cliché: the most money I’m making, but now also the most depressed I've been. I did some soul searching and rediscovered what brought me joy.”