Movie Breakdown: His House (Noah)
Pre-Screening Stance:
It’s pretty simple: I love horror movies and I love horror movies from around the globe. His House is, spoiler alert, a horror movie from England that focuses on two refugees from South Sudan who move into what seems like a haunted home. Highly interested.
Post-Screening Ramble:
The more I think about His House the more I not only like it, but the more I find to think about. At its heart, His House is a film about what amounts to a haunted home. Two refugees from war-torn South Sudan – Wunmi Mosaku and Sope Dirisu – are granted a household in a skeezy section of some brutally grey English town. It comes with rules and restrictions and, well, it comes with a terrifying assortment of ghosts. And though His House starts like so many other haunted house films – relatively happy couple with a dark past slowly start to pull apart as one of them is pulled into the madness of trying to find a ghost (tearing holes in walls, wetting one’s self in the midst of a waking nightmare, etc.) – it meticulously unfolds to reveal itself to be much, much more. The film, on one level, is about the claustrophobic experience of being a refugee – the couple at the heart of it are basically trapped within the house and not because of ghostly chains, but because if they leave, they’ll be sent back to South Sudan. They have no options in terms of where they live and even complaining about the home can lead to their deportation (a tense scene with Dirisu and Matt Smith – perfect as an over-it social worker – finds Dirisu trying to explain the creatures running through his walls). It’s a clever plot mechanic, but also a fascinating subtext that adds a layer of sadness and anger to the creepshow on screen. And that’s just one of the layers. Debut director Remi Weekes subtly adds layer after layer of subtext – our connections to our traditions and our heritage, dealing with trauma, survivor’s guilt, the cost of freedom, etc. – to create a rich, meaty horror film. And this is a horror film. Weekes has used the symbols and the culture of South Sudanese tribes to create some truly frightening ghost-creatures and he uses the nightmarish dreamscape of each character to craft some memorable scenes that have stuck deep in my mind. This is horror as it should be – the layer of jump scares and gore laid gently atop layer after layer of thoughtful subtext. And His House is certainly one of the better horror films of 2020.
One Last Thought:
Wunmi Mosaku (of Lovecraft Country) is such a wonderfully imposing force of an actor. She plays a solid twist on the skeptical wife role, and her sweetly intimidating presence anchors the whole film.
