Credit: netflix

Here’s a bold claim: most haunted-house horror movies start looking similar after a while. After a point, it’s the same creaking floors and sudden jump scares over and over again. Then along comes His House on Netflix, a film that turns the same horror formula upside down. If you watched it once back in 2020 and moved on, it might be time for a second look because this time, you are going to notice things you never did the last time.

His House was released on Netflix in October 2020 and was director Remi Weekes’s feature film debut, and, frankly, not a bad start for a debut, not at all. Before Netflix, the film premiered earlier that year at the Sundance Film Festival, where it didn’t take long to become one of the festival’s standout titles. Critics took notice right away. In fact, the movie holds a 100% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes based on dozens of reviews. A horror movie with a 100% score means it did something right.

The film follows a South Sudanese refugee couple, Bol and Rial, played by Sope Dirisu and Wunmi Mosaku. After escaping war in South Sudan, they are placed in a government-assigned house in a small English town while their asylum case is processed. The catch? They can’t leave the property and must follow strict rules if they want to stay in the country.

Now you might wonder, where is the horror? It’s the damn house! The house is haunted.

And now comes the bigger question: what was it that made the film stand out from the crowd? The answer has to be the way horror works on two levels. On one hand, you get the eerie figures in the walls and the creepy sounds in the dark, you know, the basics. On the other hand, the movie is really about something heavier, which is the experience of starting over in a country that doesn’t accept you. And that’s where the film really separates itself from the typical haunted-house playbook.

Remi Weekes once explained that the story was inspired by real refugee experiences in the United Kingdom. The British asylum system often places refugees in temporary housing while their cases are reviewed. In the film, Bol and Rial are warned not to “draw attention” to themselves, and that rule follows them everywhere.

And in case you are wondering if it’s just the actors who did a great job, do not forget that the house played a key role too. All the noise from the walls and the way those spaces were cramped were a clear indicator of how they felt trapped.

Did you know Wunmi Mosaku received a BAFTA nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her work in the film? And it totally makes sense if you watch the performances of the actors in the film.

So why revisit it now? You see, His House remains one of the most critically acclaimed horror films Netflix has released, yet it rarely shows up in mainstream horror conversations the way bigger franchises do. It deserves all the love from an audience that knows how to appreciate a film. If you are scrolling through Netflix this weekend, wondering what to watch, skip the predictable horror films and press play on His House.