Movie Review - His House

Remi Weekes is a Black British filmmaker making his debut feature. His film focuses on a black couple who are African refugees who have come to the United Kingdom as asylum seekers. As such, he invokes African folklore and myth, which might be based in actual folklore and myth or it could be total invention on Weekes' part. However, the imagery that he utilizes at times feels authentic to African folklore and myth. I can't comment on horror films or even TV programs done by Black British filmmakers, but, with the exception of Spike Lee's Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2015), which does invoke African folklore, a lot of American horror films that utilize black characters often invoke slavery or images and ideas from slavery, such as Candyman (1992). It seems rare that African folklore and myths are utilized in horror films or much of any genre film.

What isn't rare though is the haunted house film. Plenty of horror flicks have utilized the idea of a creepy home or domicile. One of the most famous is The Amityville Horror (1979). Of course, there have been others, such as Poltergeist (1982), Paranormal Activity (2009) and The Conjuring (2013). Those films involve an innocent, white family that inhabits a house and become tormented through no fault of their own. It's often by happenstance or due to the sins of people before them that causes the horror. The white family is usually never culpable. They're often blameless. That's not exactly the case with Weekes' film. Often in horror films, the characters will usually be the cause of their own destruction or damnation. In Psycho (1960), a woman steals a lot of money. I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) had its protagonists basically commit a murder. The Fly (1986) was about a scientist whose experiment goes wrong, mainly due to his hubris. Weekes' builds his film in that same vein.

Sope Dirisu (Sand Castle and The Huntsman: Winter's War) stars as Bol Majur, a man from Sudan who is fleeing his country because it has become a war-torn area. The veritable civil war threatens to kill him and his wife, so they effort to escape. He and his wife make it to the UK where they're granted asylum. As such, they're given a stipend and a house. The stipend is meager and the house is rundown, lying in the middle of a ghetto. The electricity in the house barely works. The wallpaper is falling down. It's dirty and there are insects everywhere. The place is virtually rotting. However, Bol still prefers it here than in war-torn Sudan where they might be brutally murdered.

His resolve to stay in that home is challenged when strange things start to occur, which suggest a demonic force is haunting them with the intent on killing Bol. He's scared of the strange noises, creepy happenings and even the apparitions that start to terrify him more and more. Yet, his resolve to stay is so strong that he thinks he can ignore or overcome these strange and threatening things. He keeps reminding his wife of what they went through to get to this home. Whatever it was Bol and his wife experienced on the journey to the UK is a trauma and a hardship that he doesn't want to be in vain.

Wunmi Mosaku (Lovecraft Country and Luther) co-stars as Rial Majur, the wife of Bol. She has also seen the apparitions. Instead of dismissing it at first as hallucinations or the result of some mental breakdown, she knows immediately what is causing the haunting and why. Rial tells Bol that a witch has followed them and blames Bol for the death of their daughter. She believes that they should leave and go back to the Sudan as the way to repay the so-called debt that the witch thinks they owe. Rial hasn't been adjusting to life in the UK. She's more resistant to assimilation than her husband. This is in part due to the fact that she feels more impacted by the undercurrent of xenophobia.

Much like the recent films The Babadook (2014) or It Follows (2015), the supernatural threat here is a metaphor for some kind of human condition that one can struggle to handle or face. The Babadook was possibly a metaphor for mental illness in one's family. It Follows was possibly about sexual transmitted diseases or infections. Ostensibly, Weekes' film is about grief and loss, particularly the loss parents feel when their child dies. It's ostensibly about the guilt they feel over the idea that it was their job to protect their children and yet they failed. However, cleverly, Weekes transforms that guilt into guilt one would feel over protecting themselves over someone else or in spite of someone else.

It's about the difficult decisions people make in the heat of the moment for self preservation. It's about trading one horror for another and how people make those choices. In the end, it's also about how those choices can haunt us and how ultimately we have to face and accept them.

Rated TV-14.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 33 mins.

Available on Netflix.