Remi Weekes's His House was an under-marketed and unexpected release that has taken the horror genre by storm with its massive success and rave reviews from both fans and critics. It's a passionate story about seeking refuge from South Sudan in England as the nightmares from home become inescapable. His House's reviews are overwhelmingly positive for several reasons — here's why it has been so favorably received.
After arriving in England, Bol (Sope Dirisu) and Rial (Wumni Mosaku, Lovecraft Country) begin to discover that their new home is invaded by spirits of the past. After losing their daughter, Nyagak (Malaika Wakoli-Abigaba), while seeking refuge, the two experience vivid flashbacks of the day she drowned at sea. Adjusting to a new place can be difficult, especially when a night witch known as an apeth seeks to completely destroy their relationship and take Bol to the underworld with the promise of resurrecting Nyagak. As the story continues to unfold, several twists and turns occur leading up to a surprising conclusion for the couple that make it an unforgettable story of love, loss, and spiritual hauntings.
His House features so many important pieces of social dialogue on refugees with the added elements of the supernatural. There are several moments where the horrors of reality outweigh the spirits that torment Bol and Rial. As of this writing, His House holds an impressive 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes that hasn't wavered. The movie has been praised for its ability to capture the nuances of a couple who are haunted as well as the astounding attention to detail on matters pertaining to asylum seekers. It has even garnered comparisons to Jordan Peele's socially and culturally significant movie Get Out. Here's what critics are saying about Netflix's latest original horror movie release.
"Jump scares? We have those. Terrifying ghouls dredged from the bottom of the sea and who-knows-where-else: We have those, too. And all the other tricks of the trade, all the unwelcome surprises, nightmares made plain as day. Weekes seems to know that when it comes to putting the horror of a horror movie on display, one needn’t reinvent the wheel: Give us what we want."
"Seamlessly meshing classic scary movie tropes with the more profound horror of real-world conflict zones, His House represents a harrowing but bracingly creative feature debut for British writer-director Remi Weekes."
"Whereas a lesser film might have condescended to these characters and mined easy scares from the indignities of the assimilation process, Weekes’ dingy chiller implicitly recognizes that life would be difficult for a grieving Black couple who show up in England with nothing but each other and a few trinkets to their names, and it never stops using its genre as a torch to illuminate the specific forms those shadowed difficulties might take."
With nearly every movie, there are often negative reviews that accompany the positive ones. In the case of Remi Weekes's His House, they are far more difficult to locate. In essence, it appears to be the perfect horror movie, but nothing is ever absolutely perfect. Undoubtedly, there are some faults that can be found within the movie.
"After a few good creepy scares earlier on, the scenes of supernatural menace start to seem a bit rote, leading up to a denouement that’s more interesting for how it affects Bol and Rial’s fractured relationship than for what the menace actually is, or how it might be defeated."
"It sounds like something you’ve seen a million times, but its cultural point of view is tilt-shifted enough to make it engrossing."
Even His House's most negative reviews are overwhelmingly positive or include mentions of the merits it has behind Weekes's inventive story. It brings all new sets of horrors to the often tired paranormal sub-genre by weaving together the troubling reality of seeking asylum, especially as a Black couple in England. Rial and Bol experience racism from Black citizens of England as well as white citizens. It showcases the complexities of seeking refuge and being haunted by the ghosts of the past. In several flashbacks, Rial comes face to face with the mass murder of her family, and the fact that Bol kidnapped the girl they consider their daughter. It is a gut-wrenching story that reinvents how the paranormal can manifest and under what kind of circumstances it continues.
His House doesn't rely on traditional means of telling paranormal stories such as found footage, possession, and exorcism. Instead, it takes a much more nuanced route, making it one of the most unique horror movies of 2020. There are countless reasons as to why His House deserves its 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and its overwhelmingly positive reviews by critics. It is unique, inventive, honest, forceful, unsettling, disturbing, and so much more than the average paranormal horror story.