For Remi Weeke’s first film, His House (2020) is an exceptional drama, thrill and spectacle. I watch a lot of horror films so even when I deem a certain watch as ‘successful’, it could still be rather predictable and drab in terms of plot. I partially accepted that, at least for the time-being, we had more or less exhausted original material and therefore need to place more emphasis on the stylistic and aesthetic features to refresh an already told tale. But His House proved me wrong. It didn’t just prove me wrong, it shook me awake and had me begging for more.

Weeke’s film managed to be both terrifying, moving and socially-conscious all at the same time. It is a horror that doesn’t shy away from actual, concrete themes (other than solely death, good vs. evil or revenge) whilst still sprinkling in a healthy dose of jump-scares and ghoulish creatures. It evokes emotions beyond fear. It therefore develops into a living, breathing, three-dimensional life of its own – with a heart, mind and soul. It would have been easy for a film that it attempting to be so many things simultaneously to get away from you, but Weeke’s was able to restrain the entity he produced (and wrote), keeping it well within the bounds of reason and preventing any inadvertently comedic scenes.

His House illuminates the horror that is the refugee crisis. Bol and Rial are escaping one awful situation and entering into another, just in a different country. The dreary, run-down house provided to them by the UK government adequately expresses the lack of care and support given to those that are most vulnerable. The terror that proceeds to consume the couple’s lives is almost like their terrible situation made manifest. They were made to suffer in their homeland and the demons have followed them abroad (just as it would for anyone who has seen mass bloodshed, war and famine). And yet nothing is done for them – no counselling, no proper welcome, no acknowledgment of their lost language and culture. They are merely locked up in a strange house and left to stew in their own neuroses.

The setting choice is exquisite – what seems to be somewhere in the south of London, but an area that cleverly remains unidentified. Bol and Rial have entered into what is essentially a ‘no man’s land’, a limbo state where liminality dictates your every move and and a happy ending is impossible. Surrounded by ‘Others’ staring at them with unsettling blank eyes, they end up seeking refuge in their house, a house which carries all they brought with them from their traumatic past.

Regret, loss, desperation, relocation, assimilation. These are all themes that give life to the film. To what end do you go to save yourself and your wife? Who are you willing to sacrifice for your own survival? When surrounded by only death and suffering, does ethics even continue to exist? When a movie that has been advertised as a conventional horror manages to make you ask yourself all of these questions, it is a horror done right. His House has depth and a unique, refreshing form of symbolism that is so often lacking in contemporary horrors.

From one hell to another. This is what we are forcing upon refugees today. This is what we are forcing upon people who need help the most. This film is so effective because it makes this tragedy physically apparent. The decomposing, spindly arms of lost souls scratch through fading wallpaper, hallucinations of rough seas leave the audience feeling seasick and a literal demon king reaching into the skin of a survivor leaves you feeling queasy in a wholly different way. All of these scenes exist to evoke not only terror, but thought. Reflection. Change.

Watch His House. That’s all I have to say. By far one of the best horrors I have watched in the last couple months, and a British creation at that.