‘What did you dream about?’ 

Just when you think you’ve seen every conceivable kind of haunted house film, along comes a new spin on the formula. Taking African mythology as the jumping-off point this time, and presenting the scenario through the eyes of two refugees, gives the whole thing fresh life… or maybe that should be death?

Fleeing their war-torn home in South Sudan, asylum seekers Bol (Sope Dirisu from Gangs of London) and his wife Rial (Lovecraft Country’s Wunmi Mosaku) are given a new home in the UK, shown around by their case-worker Mark (erstwhile Doctor Who, Matt Smith). It’s not great, but it’s better than nothing – and bigger than Mark’s place, he keeps telling them – but while Bol is determined to try and fit in there, Rial has definite reservations.

For one thing there are noises in the walls, something Bol tries to fix by stripping off the paper in the living room and reaching into ominous black holes. The more disturbing occurrences happen, the more Rial begins to suspect something evil has followed them to these shores. But what connection can it possibly have to their daughter, who they tragically lost crossing over on a boat?

His House definitely utilises the trappings and tropes of a haunted house feature – such as glimpses of figures, jump-scares, objects moving on their own, hallucinations or waking dreams (a couple of these are downright pant-fillingly terrifying) – but it uses them well, and in a very unique way. By its very nature, a ‘stranger in a strange land’ tale is inherently unsettling (you’re holding your breath, for instance, as Rial gets lost on the rough estate, waiting for something bad to happen), but toss in the supernatural as well… Yet at the same time, as Rial points out herself, ‘After all we have seen, what men can do, you think it is bumps in the night that scare me?’ It’s a sobering thought.

Matt Smith is likeable enough, as ever, but isn’t in the movie that much. No, this feature belongs to leads Dirisu and Mosaku, who own the screen and are nothing short of mesmerising. As the insanity builds, you totally believe what they’re going through and the twist when it comes puts the viewer in an uncomfortable moral dilemma themselves.

Verdict: The mark of an excellent movie is if you’re still thinking about the story and the characters long after you’ve finished watching, and His House will certainly have that effect. Unmissable. ‘Your ghosts follow you.’     10/10

Paul Kane

 A traumatised couple from South Sudan face new terrors in a threatening British housing estate.

I’ve seen a lot of Haunted House movies in my time but never one quite like Remi Weekes’s His House currently streaming on Netflix. Weekes takes that oh-so-familiar genre, turns it upside down and gives it an almighty stomach-churning shake.

Is it set in a shadowy haunted manor peppered with flapping, squawking crows?  No. This is a scabby council property in a nameless rundown (and threatening) estate with an abandoned sofa ‘out the front’, let (by a world weary Matt Smith) to a traumatised refugee couple from South Sudan (played with utter conviction by Wunmi Mosaku and Sope Dirisu). Is the terror embedded deep in the bricks and mortar, lurking in wait for our vulnerable protagonists? No. They bring their horror with them.

This is where the film really ploughs an original furrow. Normally this genre uses horror to expose inner demons that the protagonists are unaware lie within them, but here no amount of fantastical terror can match the bloody reality of their recent experiences. This is the horror of PTSD and Survivor Guilt – and in His House only a journey through age old narratives of fear can give our couple any hope of redemption. The film is both mythic and up-to-the-minute political, without being worthy – inverting familiar cinematic tropes to find the beating heart of one of the most pressing issues of our age.

Oh yes, and it is genuinely scary. We are right in that claustrophobic housing unit with them… and stuff happens that certainly made this reviewer jump. If the movie falters at all, it’s in its middle act where it takes a bit too long to say the same thing more than once without really moving the story forward, but the central reveal is truly shocking and indeed heart-breaking, and the closing images made this reviewer cry with brilliant, unsentimental economy.

Verdict: A startlingly original and relevant reinvention of the Haunted House movie refashioned for an urban 21st century Britain. 8/10

Martin Jameson

 

His House is playing on Netflix now