“Is football a game or a religion?” the sports broadcaster Howard Cosell once asked with exasperation. The horror film “Him,” a striking but vacuous gridiron Grand Guignol by Justin Tipping ( “Kicks” ) takes it as faith that the answer is both. Any fan with a sacred good luck ritual and any player who’s thanked the man upstairs for a touchdown knows the two overlap as tightly as a freshly laced pigskin.

In the home of young elementary schooler Cameron Cade (Austin Pulliam), the fictional San Antonio Saviors quarterback Isaiah White ( Marlon Wayans ) is the messiah. Next to the TV, there’s even a shrine with devotional portraits of their icon. When White wins a game while suffering a nasty injury, Cameron’s father seizes the moment to deliver a sermon: “That’s what real men do,” he

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