His House (2020) | Plot, Cast & Horror Facts

His House is a 2020 folk horror film about a refugee couple haunted by the past in their new English home.

At a Glance

Overview

Bol and Rial Majur flee war in South Sudan with a young girl they present as their daughter. After a dangerous sea crossing in which the girl is lost, they are granted asylum in Britain and placed in a dilapidated house on a housing estate. They are forbidden to work and must remain at the address. Almost immediately the house reveals a presence: figures in the walls, the sound of the sea, and an entity Rial identifies as an apeth or night witch that has followed them. Bol tries to suppress the past and fit the expectations of their caseworker; Rial insists the debt must be faced. The film treats the haunted house as both literal and the externalization of survivor guilt and the pressure to perform as “good immigrants.” Its combination of social constraint and supernatural pursuit connects it to other entries that use confined domestic space as the site of horror, including Halloween (1978).

Production

Remi Weekes wrote and directed his feature debut from a story by Felicity Evans and Toby Venables. The film premiered at Sundance in January 2020 and was released on Netflix that October. Sope Dirisu and Wunmi Mosaku lead as Bol and Rial; Matt Smith plays their caseworker. Javier Botet performed the physical presence of the apeth on set. Botet is credited as “The Witch,” with the apeth’s voice provided by Cornell John. The production shot in the United Kingdom and used the constraints of the assigned house as a central visual and narrative device. The script balances the bureaucratic limits placed on the couple with the escalating supernatural events inside the walls.

Cast

• Sope Dirisu as Bol Majur
• Wunmi Mosaku as Rial Majur
• Matt Smith as Mark
• Malaika Wakoli-Abigaba as Nyagak
• Javier Botet as the Apeth (physical performance)

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes lists 100 percent based on approximately 128 reviews, with an average around 8.1/10. Metacritic scores it 72 out of 100. Critics praised the performances of Dirisu and Mosaku, the integration of refugee experience with horror conventions, and Weekes’s control of atmosphere in a single location. The film was noted for treating the couple’s trauma and the entity that follows them as inseparable rather than as separate genre layers. It received BAFTA recognition for outstanding debut. The film arrived on Netflix on October 30, 2020, and reached a global streaming audience almost immediately. Its portrait of a home that offers no refuge has drawn comparisons to domestic horror landmarks such as A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

Spoiler: The Ending

The couple’s secret is revealed: the girl they brought was not their biological daughter; Bol took her from her mother in order to secure passage. The apeth demands payment. Bol offers himself. Rial intervenes and kills the entity. The next day, caseworkers arrive to inspect the damaged house. Bol and Rial remain, having faced what they carried with them. The ending does not remove the house or the past; it shows the couple still inside the place they were assigned, with the immediate threat ended but the larger conditions unchanged.

Trivia & Facts

• Remi Weekes’s feature debut.
• Premiered at Sundance 2020 before its Netflix release.
• Javier Botet performed the physical role of the apeth.
• The story was adapted from an original concept by Felicity Evans and Toby Venables.
• The film received a 100 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of major review aggregation.
• It was nominated for and won BAFTA recognition in the outstanding debut category.