His House

The horrors that asylum-seekers have to put themselves through when meshed with a haunted house storyline is what we get in Netflix's His House. Bol (Dirisu) and Rial (Mosaku) are refugees fleeing their war-torn country of Sudan; they brave bullets, rough waters, and even lose their daughter as they finally arrive in Britain where they're granted probational asylum. They're temporarily moved into a shabby, crumbling house in the London suburbs, and that's when the past begins to haunt them.

His House is a pretty strong directorial debut from Remi Weekes, who has also written the screenplay. It may just be a 93-minute film, however, His House manages to dive equal parts deep into the struggles of immigrants as well as survivor guilt. While Bol tries to blend in with the new surroundings (he sings football anthems at bars, changes his attire, and prefers to use tables while eating), Rial holds firmly onto their culture (she wears their daughter's necklace, dresses in vibrant colors, and sits on the floor while eating).

The scares, the greatest thing about horror films, are well-conceived. Weeks mixes jumpscares with more atmosphere-heavy ones in an effort to keep viewers on edge. Practical and visual effects are put to solid use in these sequences, though some fare better than others. A little inspiration has been drawn from films like The Conjuring and Lights Out, in a good way. Weekes, through some effective crafting that blur the lines between fantasy and reality, elevates His House beyond the conventional haunted house movie.

Not everything works though. The final act switches horror for a somewhat predictable twist, and while the closing frames make for a powerful set of metaphors, it feels slightly sketchy from a closure standpoint. The performances are good for a film that revolves mostly around two (or three, if you include the beast) characters - Dirisu and Mosaku showcasing credible, lived-in feats.

His House starts great and it also ends strongly. However, that beginning and that ending feel like they are from two different movies. It's quite unfortunate that it made me feel that way because I do think that there is a lot of things that this movie gets right.

Let's start with the first half of the movie. What I would consider the horror half. This film began very quickly and left very little time for the viewer to get situated. The first 45 minutes were indeed very scary, and I was drawn to the screen. But what made that first half so great, was that it didn't just rely on the usual horror tropes. His House explored themes of racism and all the other challenges that refugees face. These issues were explored in a way that caused tension even outside of the house that works as the centrepiece of the story. Another aspect that created its own horror was distrust and challenges of marriage. This film managed to create an atmosphere of constant terror and tension, and I, for one, really liked it.

The second half, however, moves into a completely different direction. What started as a pure horror film, shifts more and more into a drama as the run time moves towards its end. The horror changes from the typical haunted house style more into creature horror. That's also where the movie stopped being scary for me. I have never found creature horror to be particularly scary and this film didn't change that. I do realize that that is a personal problem, and most people will probably find the second half to be nearly as scary as the first one. But it's not just the normal horror stuff that changes. The two aforementioned aspects of immigration and marriage are almost completely forgotten about. And it is quite unfortunate that this is the case. I felt that they added so much to this movie and made it more than just another haunted house film.

With that being said, I did like the second half nearly as much as I liked the first one. His House end up becoming a rather touching drama by the time it finishes. And if it forgot about the challenges of immigration and marriage, it replaced it with the conundrum of whether to leave ones home country in the first place. Although a new home promises a better life, is that always going to be the reality?

There is a lot to like about His House. I think that it fantastically approached horror by making it about more than just jump scares and a scary atmosphere. I also liked that it was a haunted house film that didn't take place in an abandoned mansion. And, I also liked the second half with everything it had to offer. The thing that lessened my excitement was the fact that I felt like I ended up watching two different films. Had there been more cohesion between the two halves, I'm certain that I would've liked this film quite a bit more.

Different and memorable. Not predictable, left me wondering in what order it was written.

Well... I was lucky enough to watch this movie at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival (internet). I am a big fan of horror films and this movie definitely delivers. The story is one that blends very well the horrors that many refugees face along with the manifestations of the terrors they bring. Often times the most scariest stories are those that deal with the non supernatural.

More specifically, the movie is actually logical and doesn't fall for the classic tropes. In many scary movies that deal with a haunted house, I ask myself "Why don't they just move?!?!?!" but in this case they can't because they're placed in these specific, confining circumstances in order to get their asylum granted. I was also a fan of how the film portrays the female character as the strong, cool and collected wife while it's the husband who quickly descends into madness.

Overall, I encourage everyone to watch this movie when it comes out on Netflix Turkiye.

A long time ago, in a city far, far away I worked in a London hostel for young people who found themselves homeless. Over time one of my responsibilities became the oversight of the house next door to the hostel in which were accommodated a smaller number of people who had arrived in the UK seeking asylum. All these years later I can still remember some things about some of the people I worked with there Yugoslavia with whom I often watched and talked about football or the news updates from his homeland. At one point we even accommodated a man who was an IRA informer - not an asylum seeker exactly, but we were to treat him as such when he was placed with us.

When I spent time listening to and learning about these people what quickly became clear was something I knew at a subconscious level but had never really processed or given active thought to up to this point - that when you move countries, no matter how few tangible, physical possessions you bring with you, there are some less tangible things that you can't leave behind. It may be your own physical body, your culture, your beliefs and expectations, your memories and hopes, or many other things. All these come with you, whether you like it or not. This was reinforced for me when my wife and I emigrated by choice to South Africa; in doing so you realise how much more invisible baggage there must be when one flees as a refugee.

This is the territory His House covers so well - a small-scale British horror movie about a couple escaping Southern Sudan for the UK, placed for the time being in a nameless house on a nameless housing estate. They come with little in their hands, but much else they haven't been able to shed, and it's those things that haunt them so compellingly over the 90 minutes or so of this film.

The film stands on two brilliant central performances from the actors playing the couple at the film's heart - at least one of whom is on screen for the whole of the running time. But it's also much more than the performances - it's the clever use of a wide range of ideas and tropes such as the haunted house story, the home invasion movie, gothic fiction, or even at one startling point the Narnia Chronicles. These tropes are both embraced and subverted often to subtly powerful effect; and it's the wordless moments that are often the most powerful - sound design or slow camera pans bring us some of film's most memorable and effective moments.

On the face of it the film's ending may seem cloying and naive, but the reality is that it gives us a more profound truth than we may been prepared for; that in order to truly make a home for ourselves in a new context we must look squarely in the face of all the unseen things we carry with us, accept them, grieve them as appropriate and place them in their proper setting. Then we move on; not without those things, but with those things giving light and shade to all that we are in the new places in which we find ourselves. As such this is not only a powerful, chilling, and moving film about the refugee experience, but one about experiences we all go through at different life stages.