His House (2020)

Disclaimer: His House (2020) review was originally uploaded February 10, 2022 and updated July 2025.

Set in Britain, His House is about 2 refugees, Rial portrayed by Wunmi Mosaku and Bol portrayed by Sope Dirisu, who are South Sudanese and from there travel through the English Channel from France to strive for a better life. On their journey they lose their daughter, Nyagak portrayed by Malakia Abigaba, who drowns before making it. Running from a war that broke out between 2 tribes they then arrive in the UK and spend time in a detention center facing a subpar living situation while they struggle with PTSD symptoms. Both are granted temporary asylum and after a 3 month wait period they’re granted asylum and feel that their woes have ended, going to their new accommodations on the outskirts of London.

When they arrive they find their new home is sparsely furnished and dilapidated, junk and trash from previous residents crowding even their yard. They are placed under strict probation and face deportation back to South Sudan if they don’t comply perfectly including a minuscule £75 stipend they must survive on. From early on Rial views their situation as a sad and mournful circumstance full of grief which is the opposite of Bol. Bol wants to fully embrace their new culture and forget about the past entirely, moving on from the trauma and focusing on having children.

His House (2020) spoilers past this point

Already upon arriving the couple faces racism from their neighbors, who are less than happy to have refugees living nearby. Their case worker is the one British person they speak in depth with, portrayed by Matt Smith, but it becomes clear that he isn’t a saint when he tells them he hopes they’re the good ones, stereotyping the refugees he works with and approaching the couple as if they’re beneath him. The system that has been set up makes it so that he does lord power over them and Bol jumps fully into assimilation. On the other hand Rial is resistant to leaving behind who they are to follow this new path that is way more uncertain.

An entire psychological horror movie could follow just Rial and Bol’s experiences in England and interactions with the people there. Like most Western countries the clean and “polite” veneer covers a decaying root that is spreading and rotting the whole thing slowly. The racism is permeated through the system they go through all the way through the opportunities available to them once they are given citizenship on leashed terms. They’ve done nothing in life to suggest they are more or less safe than any other person and in fact have gone through a review process that domestic citizens typically don’t face, further ensuring that immigrants attempting proper channels are more vetted than the average citizen.

Unfortunately for the couple they are also in the midst of a haunting in their home, seeing their dead daughter and a man coming from the walls. Rial gets to the bottom of things and believes they are haunted by a witch whom has followed them because they owe her a debt in order to have their daughter back. They don’t know what the debt is however and Bol interprets it as ridding themselves of everything they brought from Sudan, burning it all. This doesn’t solve their problems however but it does drives them apart, Bol finally getting upset enough to go to Mark and request a different place, claiming theirs has rats.

Mark doesn’t believe him or care about his cause and instead Bol rips the home apart trying to find the witch, or apeth, but just gives Mark reason to threaten their status. Rial wants to go back home to Sudan but Bol is upset by this and traps her inside their house, summoning the apeth to talk to it directly. When he does it tells him that he owes the debt of a life and it offers him to trade his own life to give his daughter life again but he refuses this deal. After he refuses he’s trapped in a comatose state while Rial escapes the house in his subdued state.

Instead of being outside of their house in Sudan though Rial enters a classroom from home where she meets old friends. Rial’s friends and her are attacked and become victims in a massacre that she survives because she’s able to find a place to hide. Bol is able to get to her and the couple escape the area as things escalate and become more dangerous. When they get to the bus to leave though they find out only people with children are being allowed to leave so Bol decides to abduct a child, who is revealed to be Nyagak, the child that has been portrayed as their daughter.

The couple claims that Nyagak is their daughter and are allowed onto the bus because of this, leaving her actual mother behind in the war torn South Sudan. Gunfire breaks out and implies that no one left in their area survived the massacre, including Nyagak’s mother. When the three are making their way across the channel Nyagak falls into the water along with others, the journey dangerous and unsafe. Neither Rial nor Bol is able to rescue her and she drowns, and once confronted with the truth of their past Bol gives in and agrees to pay the debt with his life so that Rial can live.

Beginning to accept the witch into him as one, sacrificing himself for Rial, and Nyagak enters, having returned. Rial can’t let Bol go though, and saves him by slitting the apeth’s throat and giving up having Nyagak back and absolving those sins. The couple both live and cut to Mark doing an inspection of the house, finding it repaired and cute with Rial and Bol both affirming they intend to make it their home. They tell him the truth that Rial was able to kill the apeth who had been haunting them but Mark doesn’t take them seriously, brushing it off as some sort of cultural humor he doesn’t understand or care to understand. Bol informs Mark that the couple is choosing to live alongside their ghosts from home, even Nyagak, together.

Conclusion

Whether intentional or not it became clear that Rial and Bol faced different challenges, Rial with more challenges even, based on their genders. While Bol was given a box of donations upon arriving at a local pub Rial was followed, mocked, and told to go back to Africa by boys while trying to visit a doctor. While both experience hardship based on race, class, and immigration status only Rial faces the additional hardship for being a Black woman in a Western culture. This then is a perfect cause and effect situation of the 2 refugees outlooks and desires when it comes to their new life. While Rial wants to retain as much of home as possible and retain their culture Bol is happy to ditch their past and embrace the UK, heightened discrimination towards Rial and all. These socioeconomic elements add depth and layered anxiety to the horror scenarios, not only am I worried about the haunting but I’m worried they’ll be deported and/or die due to non-supernatural circumstances.

The witch or apeth is another key horror element, to no shock, and is portrayed through a rotting hole in one of their walls that Bol sticks his arm into. He only finds a cord however and proceeds to pull until it becomes a rope, and then that rope becomes seaweed mixed with other marine life and a doll tangled in all of that, one example of how the witch haunts them with their past in realistic feeling hallucinations. The ending is a neat wrap up of events if not surprising because I would’ve guessed Rial would pick Nyagak over Bol but also sorta seeing that the lead is buried with their connection or lack of connection to the child.

Now His House is highly regarded as a piece of Black horror pushed the genre closer to social consciousness plots that do more than just jump scares. Available to watch on Netflix as a Netflix distributed movie His House is well worth a watch if not for the beautifully displayed scares and keen use of horror imagery then the superb acting performances alone. Winning multiple awards and nominations for the acting, directing, storytelling, production design, and effects this movie is a gem worth the watch.