Director-writer Remi Weekes’ waited long to reveal the monster of His House, which coincides with the main characters.
His House is a 2020 horror thriller movie taken by Toby Venables and Felicity Evans. It stars Sope Dirisu, Matt Smith, and Wunmi Mosaku. The film tells of a South Sudan refugee couple struggling to adjust to the new life in an English town that has evil beneath the surface. The movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 27 January 2020. It was released by Netflix on 30 October 2020 and received many positive responses.
The movie’s plot follows Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) and Bol (Sope Dirisu) fleeing from South Sudan with their daughter Nyagak. While crossing the Mediterranean, they face a dangerous storm on the open sea in search of a better life. The couple loses their daughter during the journey. After three months, the Britain government assigns a shabby house with peeling walls when they finally grant their probational asylum.
The couple moves into a small English town, and they are optimistic about starting their new life despite the squalor and insects. Bol starts to hear a strange sound from behind the walls within the first couple of nights. Bol and Rial escape the country with violence, but they suffer hallucinations, dreams, and flashbacks during their journey.
Most haunted stories revolve around spirits and supernatural forces; Weekes’ characters bring their ghosts with themselves. And the most hostile one was the Rial’s night witch. The appearance of the night witch is a glimpse of two dark hands. When Rial’s encounter with the witch, its power sounds like an urban legend, who can call up the dead and consume a whole man. The couple’s relationship begins to fade away as the witch’s presence becomes more prominent and constant. Bol locks them inside, and their apartment becomes claustrophobic. However, the audience cannot be specific whether the ghosts are for real or in their imagination.
The arrival of the witch created distrust and paranoia between wife and husband. Introducing the witch early into the story helps pull the focus to the terrifying storyline. Bol is filled with guilt, and Rial is plagued by resentment. The witch dragged them to terms with emotions and created the appearance of a monster in the film.
The movie depicts that humans can not get rid of their mistakes. And viewers can not be sure that if Rial did not come up with a story just to torment her husband, Bol. The best horror stories could start the conversation only from its very beginning—the character in the film resonated with the audience more than a monster. The 2020 film, His House, follows the inspiration of Get Out, using the genre to incorporate the Black experience but took it a little further.
According to the fantastic filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, there is no terror in the bang, but only in anticipation of it. The incredible movies in the horror genre like The Conjuring, Paranormal Activity, A Quiet Place, Rosemary’s Baby, and His House are all based on philosophy. Most of the time, the audience is frightened by the things that are linked with imagination.
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