His House: South Sudanese refugees find the supernatural awaits them in their U.K. home, in directorial horror debut

By Karen Gordon

Rating: B 

There are many intriguing ideas in Remi Weekes’ thoughtful directorial debut His House – including the metaphorical connection between refugees and ghosts. But uneven execution makes this cross-culture ghost story less resonant than it might have been. 

The film centers on Bol (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) and his wife Rial (Wunmi Mosaku), refugees, escaping from  the horrors of war in South Sudan. Along the way, we learn of another horror. The daughter, who they’d sworn to protect, has drowned on the sea crossing. 

Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù and Wunmi Mosaku play a couple who fled 6,000 miles only to end up in a haunted house.

Now the two are in London, England and given a large place to stay in until their case can be heard for permanent resident status to England. They’re given a place to live, a stipend, and not allowed to work until after their hearing.

The house itself speaks of neglect and abandonment. There’s no sense of neighbourhood. No open doors or friendly faces. It’s not heaven, but for the moment, they have each other, and they are safe, at least physically.

Bol especially goes about making the place into a home, but almost immediately things are odd. Sounds of scratching and knocking come from inside the living room walls at night. When Bol investigates, wallpaper peels to reveal holes in the drywall that form the shape of a distorted face with a rope dangling out of it. He pulls at the wet, seaweedy rope, and a doll like the one his daughter had emerges attached to it, before suddenly being snatched back by ghostly arms. He blinks and the wallpaper is back in place. Night after night produces things in the dark, that disappear when the lights come on. 

PROUDLY SUPPORTS ORIGINAL-CIN

Rial invokes a story from her village about a night witch who menaces someone who has stolen his house.  She believes that spirits, ghosts or demons have followed them to their new home, and they want something, and that the two of them, should return home.  

Weekes, who wrote the screenplay for His House from a story by Felicity Evans and Toby Venables, is using the horror genre as a way of exploring a multitude of traumas facing migrants and asylum seekers: PTSD, dislocation, isolation, and separation from their family, homes, villages and culture. 

Bol and Rial have suffered greatly and now in this safe haven, without work or other things to fill their time, they have the mental space to reckon with the literal ghosts of their journey to freedom. 

And from that point of view, His House is not only effective, but even more, it displays compassion for these two as human beings.  Bol, for instance, projects an outward air of determination and confidence, but in a single shot, early on, we can see how deeply pained he is. In this regard, Weekes is ably helped by his two leads, who turn in quiet contained performances. 

Where the film is lacking is in tone.  While the characters’ trauma and backstory may be unusual territory for horror,  Weekes' storytelling  leans on a lot of conventional horror movie tropes. To succeed they require a steady undertone of menace and a constant, and growing sense of anxiety. That exists briefly in this film. But once the hauntings start, the film has shown its hand, and from that point of view the telling falls fairly flat. 

As well, he introduces a twist late in the film, a darker and more interesting revelation that takes us deeper into the psyche of one of the characters, and that is unfortunately never fully explored.

But if His House doesn’t quite achieve the deeply unsettling tone that makes a good horror movie hard to shake, it still succeeds as an exploration of trauma, and the way it can shape and challenge the human psyche. People who have endured the horrors of war, and more broadly, anyone haunted by trauma, knows about living with dread.

His House. Directed by Remi Weekes. Written by Felicity Evans and Tony Venables. Stars Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù and Wunmi Mosaku. Debuts Friday, October 30 on Netflix.