His House

I watched His House on my laptop while a thunderstorm rattled my own window, which felt a bit too "method" for a Tuesday night. Usually, when we talk about haunted house movies, we’re talking about Victorian mansions or suburban split-levels with a history of grisly murders. We expect creaking floorboards and dolls with wandering eyes. But Remi Weekes’ debut feature does something much more unsettling: it gives us a haunted house that is supposed to be a sanctuary, then reminds us that for a refugee, "home" is a concept built on top of a graveyard.

The film follows Bol (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) and Rial (Wunmi Mosaku), a couple who have fled the soul-crushing violence of South Sudan. After a harrowing Mediterranean crossing that claims the life of their daughter, Nyagak, they find themselves processed through the cold, grey machinery of the British asylum system. They are eventually "gifted" a house in a bleak London suburb—a crumbling, wallpaper-peeling terrace that comes with a strict set of rules: don’t make trouble, don’t move, and don't expect the neighbors to like you.

The Bureaucracy of Dread

What I found most striking about the first act isn't the supernatural stuff—it's the social horror. Matt Smith shows up as Mark, a cynical but not entirely unkind caseworker who treats the couple like a science experiment that might leak. He tells them they have to be "one of the good ones." The horror here is the looming threat of being "sent back." For Bol and Rial, a ghost in the wall is terrifying, but a knock from the Home Office is a death sentence.

Remi Weekes captures the immigrant experience with a sharpness that honestly makes traditional jumpscares feel like a relief. There’s a scene where Rial gets lost in a labyrinth of identical brick streets, met with the blank stares of white neighbors and the mockery of local kids. It’s claustrophobic in a way that had me reaching for a glass of water just to ground myself. If you think a monster under the bed is scary, try being told you don't exist by an entire zip code.

A Different Kind of Ghost

When the "haunting" truly begins, it doesn't follow the Conjuring playbook. There’s no priest with holy water coming to save the day. Instead, the house begins to bleed the past. Bol starts seeing figures in the walls—the "Night Witch" or apeth—who demands they pay a debt for what they did to survive the crossing.

The creature design, aided by the legendary Javier Botet (the man who has played almost every terrifying spindly thing in modern cinema), is genuinely freakish. But the scares work because they are tied to Bol and Rial’s conflicting ways of grieving. Bol wants to assimilate; he wants to eat with a fork, watch football, and pretend the holes in the wall aren't whispering to him. Rial stays rooted in her culture and her trauma, recognizing that the ghosts aren't just intruders—they’re family.

Wunmi Mosaku is the emotional anchor here. Her performance is so internal and weary that when she finally explains the reality of their "escape," it hits harder than any CGI monster could. Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù matches her by slowly unraveling, his desperate attempts to be "normal" turning into a frantic, violent battle with his own conscience.

Streaming Gems and Social Stakes

In this era of "elevated horror"—a term I mostly find pretentious, but which fits the Netflix-era trend of genre films doing double duty as social commentary—His House stands out because it doesn't feel like it's checking boxes. Released during the height of the pandemic when we were all trapped in our own four walls, it tapped into a very specific kind of domestic anxiety.

Interestingly, the film was a massive hit at Sundance before Netflix snapped it up. It’s the kind of movie that might have been buried in a limited theatrical run ten years ago, but in the streaming landscape, it found an audience hungry for stories that look beyond the Western canon of spooky stories. It uses Dinka folklore not as a gimmick, but as a lens to view a very modern, very British tragedy. My cat actually knocked over a stack of mail right as Bol started ripping up the floorboards, and for a split second, I was ready to hand over my soul if it meant getting out of that living room.

The third act delivers a twist that recontextualizes everything you thought you knew about these "victims." It’s a brave move that complicates our sympathy and forces us to reckon with the impossible choices people make in the dark. It’s not a "fun" movie in the way a slasher is fun, but it is deeply rewarding.

His House is a reminder that the most persistent ghosts aren't the ones that rattle chains, but the ones we invite in because we’re too afraid to be alone with our memories. It’s a masterclass in atmosphere and a gut-punch of a debut for Remi Weekes. If you’ve been scrolling through Netflix's horror section and skipping past the posters of people looking haunted in hallways, stop on this one. It’s the rare film that understands that the scariest thing about a house isn't what’s behind the walls—it’s what you brought through the front door.