His House (2020) blurs the line between supernatural and psychological horror.

 

"Who's house?" "Run's house!" (Image courtesy of Netflix.com)

Asian Does Horror has been eagerly waiting for His House to drop on Netflix and we can honestly say that it's not a disappointment and we completely enjoyed watching this. 

His House revolves around Bol and Rial Majur, a Dinka husband and wife refugee couple fleeing war-torn South Sudan seeking asylum in Britain. Detained in London, they were fortunate enough to be given asylum status by the government along with 74 British pounds a week and accommodations. As Bol and Rial start settling into their government provided home, the couple starts to experience supernatural phenomena within the house itself. 

The flow of the movie is extremely satisfying. It's slow when necessary and fast paced when needed, but the director, producer and post-production did a terrific job controlling the pace of the movie. 

The movie doesn't waste time perpetuating the existence of the supernatural in the home as within the first day of them inside the house, Bol is introduced to ghostly elements. 

Just be English and blame it on the weather. (Image courtesy of vulture.com)

Those that have watched Lovecraft Country would recognise Wunmi Mosaku, the actress portraying Rial Majur in this movie. We absolutely enjoyed Lovecraft Country and Mosaku's character in it and her acting in His House is no less than brilliant. Dirisu is joined by her co-star Sope Dirisu, another notable name in acting. Despite not having many movie roles, he has been in some notable productions including  The Hunstman: Winter's War, Black Mirror and Gangs of London. There aren't a lot of other main characters in His House, but we get a peak at Matt Smith as the slightly indifferent, but ultimately caring refugee case worker. On a casting standpoint, the movie did well to hire these names and it showed throughout the movie. 

The movie is layered with layer upon layers of somberness where it counts and bright, warm colors where it's necessary. The attention to detail given in this movie is just terrific, from the ambiance, the English weather when shooting outside, the creeping darkness and the overall feel of the movie. 

We also love that the movie highlights the issue of racism in England. 

The color, ambiance and set design is just otherwordly. (Image courtesy of Los Angeles Times)

In terms of the supernatural elements of this movie, there were more pros than cons and we were quite glad for that. The spirits that the movie introduced in the house were designed well and the action shots and jump scares were shown tastefully. The only con we had pertaining to the supernatural was the Apeth at the end. It was just so... in your face, that the sense of fear was gone, but we suspect that that's what the director was going with and it was applied well on and through the screen to the viewers. 

We also liked that they included a lot of Afrikaan elements in the movie like the casting of the characters, the attire, the portrayal of war-torn South Sudan as well as the folklore. 

As the movie progresses, we understand that Rial and Bol lost their daughter in the ocean as they were making their way to England. But when you look back on the movie (once you've finished it), you'll see that only Rial is overly affected by the loss and not Bol. This could be construed as a mother's love being more powerful an emotion than a father's, but the true reason was explained towards the end in the final flashback. 

(Image courtesy of polygon.com)

AHOY! SPOILERS AHEAD

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It turns out that Nyagak, their daughter that died at sea, wasn't really their daughter. While trying to get on a bus to flee South Sudan, Bol used someone else's daughter as an emotional bargaining chip to get himself and Rial on the last bus out of there. 

The Apeth that has been haunting them and calling Bol a thief is actually referring to Bol's actions of kidnapping the child and then leaving her to drown in the ocean when their boat capsized. 

So there's two ways of approaching, watching and understanding this movie; we can choose to believe that the Apeth is actually real and punishing them for their actions, or it's their own guilt eating them from the inside and it affected Rial more because she was the one taking care of Nyangak during their journey. Either way you approach this movie, it works. 

At the end of the movie, when the refugee case workers visit the house, there's a scene where Bol tells Matt Smith's character, "your ghosts follow you. They never leave" followed by a shot of different faces in their house including Nyangak's, we believe that these are the faces of all the people that they've left behind in South Sudan.

All in all, we give His House 👻👻👻👻 ghost emojis out of five. There were very little things that  were wrong about this movie, but the Apeth scene at the end was a let down for us, no matter what excuses we made for it.