Review: His House (2020)

Directed by: Remi Weekes
Starring: Sope Dirisu, Wunmi Mosaku, Malaika Wakoli-Abigaba
Written by: Remi Weekes
Music by: Roque Baños
IMDb

His House concerns a couple of Sudanese refugees who seek asylum in London, who realize their boarding house may be haunted. The film continues a trend in 2020 of very intriguing and fantastic horror films. While there is indeed a supernatural element at work in this movie, the most frightening aspect is what the refugees find in their everyday surroundings. Their home and family in Sudan has been destroyed by civil war and their forced home in England is just as unforgiving. There’s a heartbreaking and unsettling scene fairly early on in which the wife, Rial, is walking desperately, frantically through a city she does not know, to find her destination; afraid, she approaches some Black teens she thinks will sympathetically help her find her way, but they taunt her and tell her to go back to Africa, and she realizes there is absolutely no safe haven in London, despite the tragically dangerous boat trip that brought them to “asylum.” The more typical horror scares are also effective, when they realize they may have brought an evil from their home country with them as penance for their choices. A scene with ghastly apparitions rising from the sea is particularly chilling. There is a persistent ominousness throughout the film, as well as a deep sadness and desperation, as the audience begins to understand why Rial and her husband Bol are being tormented even as they’ve freed the massacre in Sudan. His House is a very thoughtful movie with a poetry to its writing that flawlessly blends the cruel darkness of demons within and without.

Rating: 9 out of 10