Forget everything you think you know about haunted house movies. Remi Weekes’s His House is a colossal achievement in terror, a film that doesn’t just deliver scares; it dissects them. It is an unrelenting, profoundly chilling exploration of what happens when the literal ghosts of your past follow you into your sanctuary.
The Setup
The film centers on Bol (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) and Rial (Wunmi Mosaku), a refugee couple from war-torn South Sudan who, after an unthinkable loss during a perilous journey across the sea, are finally granted probationary asylum in a rundown council house on the outskirts of London.
This house is their one chance to prove they can be “one of the good ones” to the indifferent British authorities, a requirement that hangs over them like a death sentence.
Their caseworker makes it clear that they must follow every rule, maintain a genteel home, and show every sign of assimilation to their new community, or face immediate deportation back to a hostile land.
The terrifying twist? Their new home is haunted, and the spirits are not random.
The central suspense that the plot builds its scares on comes from two relentlessly mounting pressures.
First, the terrifying, otherworldly entity demanding a price for their lives, and second, the crushing, real-world anxiety that a single visible crack in the wall or in their sanity will cost them their future.
✅ What Works
Profound Thematic Core: The film brilliantly connects the terrifying genre tropes of a haunted house with the invisible trauma and survivor’s guilt carried by refugees. The ghosts are not just monsters; they are the physical manifestation of grief, memory, and profound moral debt.
Lead Actors’ Performances: Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù and Wunmi Mosaku deliver nuanced and visceral performances. Dìrísù’s Bol’s frantic desperation to assimilate contrasts beautifully with Mosaku’s quiet, mournful adherence to their culture and grief of all they left behind. This grounds the supernatural horror in raw, human emotion.
Unique Folklore and Imagery: Director Remi Weekes masterfully uses African folklore, specifically the terrifying Apeth or “night witch,” to create entities that are terrifyingly unique, grotesque, and symbolic.
Visceral Atmosphere: The cinematography and sound design turn the dilapidated council house into a character itself, making it seem like a decaying organ, breathing and shifting. The couple’s sense of being caged and judged is palpable, making the horror feel inescapable both within the home and in the indifferent world outside.
❌ Where It Falls Short
Occasional Pacing Issues: The unrelenting, cyclical nature of the couple’s denial and confrontation with the spirits is at the center of this. While engaging and ultimately thematically crucial, it can make parts of the second act feel somewhat repetitive before the final, explosive narrative reveal.
Ambiguous Visuals: While much of the surrealist imagery is inventive. A few of the more abstract visual sequences, especially those blending past and present, can be momentarily confusing.
Familiar Horror Beats: Despite its innovation, the film occasionally falls back on a few more conventional jump scares and sudden camera movements that feel slightly less inventive compared to the film’s more sophisticated psychological terrors.
Final Verdict 🎯4/5
“His House” is a brilliant and innovative debut from Remi Weekes that transcends the horror genre. It’s a film that uses a haunted house as a powerful metaphor for the trauma that refugees carry. It represents a home as not simply a four-walled structure but a space where you must confront the memories and the ghosts that have followed you.
If you thought you were done with the “haunted house with a past” trope, think again. This film is an essential, must-see masterpiece of modern horror.
Just be sure to watch it with the lights on.
