His House (2020)

Directed by: Remi Weekes | 93 minutes | drama, horror | Actors: Sopé Dìrísù, Wunmi Mosaku, Malaika Wakoli-Abigaba, Matt Smith, Javier Botet, Yvonne Campbell, Vivienne Soan, Lola May, Kevin Layne

Anyone who superficially reads the synopsis of ‘His House’ will think that this is about classic horror. A man and a woman who have just lost a child move to a new home, in a city where they don’t know anyone. But it soon turns out to be haunted in the dilapidated house. Strange noises, strange appearances, mostly related to the dead child.

So classic horror? Not if you take a closer look at the synopsis. The relocating couple is a South Sudanese couple who have fled a war zone to Europe. On the open sea they lost their daughter, drowned during rough weather. In England they first stay for a while in a reception center for refugees, then they are assigned a house in a gray suburb of London. And there goes the ghosts.

So no classic horror? A little bit. The shock effects in ‘His House’ are old-fashioned. The squeaks and creaks in the house, the nervous and intrusive score, the vague appearances behind the torn wallpaper, the doll, the visions and the nightmares. Nothing about this is even remotely original.

Fortunately, the context of the film makes up for a lot. You always wonder whether the phenomena are not triggered by a triple trauma: that of the violence of war the couple witnessed, that of the horrific events at sea and that of moving to an unknown country with an unknown culture. Some sounds and images are part of the ordinary street scene, but for a newcomer they are scary and threatening.

It gets even better when we go back in time with the couple in the last half hour. Then the story gets even more embossed and we understand that this is actually a movie about facing inner demons. Then we see for the first time the cultural gap between the country of origin and the country of arrival.

Despite the worn effects and the well-known horror clichés, ‘His House’ is well worth watching. The story is layered and exciting, the context is original and the acting is all right. But it’s not a film for which you can immediately think of a target audience. Or there must be fans of artistic horror dramas with social relevance and psychological depth. Because whatever else we think of it, this isn’t classic horror.