His House Movie Review - Wall Them Up
His House has some good scares, but the horror at the heart never grabs with the intended intensity.
On the surface, their house bears a resemblance to others with respect to the monotonous colors. The difference appears in the maintenance. It's not only the interior infested with bugs, faulty bulbs, and rotten pizzas. A look from outside reveals junk scattered within their area. After flipping through a malfunctioned switch, the caseworker (Matt Smith) assures it will get fixed though no one arrives. Any problem, be it personal or otherwise, will have to be solved by these two and these two only. This also means no priest would arrive for the blessing when sinister apparitions start torturing.
It starts like any other "haunted house movie" - an explained vision first night followed by subsequent, more extended visits as the stay progresses. What sets His House apart from other "haunted house movies" is (a) this time, it's not the house, but the characters past that is possessed and (b) Remi Weekes' (in his directorial debut) intention to stretch a jump scare to its logical conclusion. Horror movies tend to end a spooky scene by throwing in a (false) jump scare, after which we cut to the next scene/day. Weekes holds you tight until the ghost makes an exit, and so you get this scene where Bol gets horrified, runs outside the house, smiles at a lady living upstairs, returns back inside, draws a conclusion around the haunting, and burns the necessary items. Usually, in other films, this sequence is interrupted by jumping to another day or is reserved for the climax. Watching His House, I realized how Remi Weekes injected something fresh within done-to-death clichés. He certainly knows how to go bump in the night. If only this was enough.
Eventually, on a closer look, I found His House to be yet another horror film using the refugees of a war-torn South Sudan as a cover to appear distinct. There are moments in His House that are brilliantly created. Weekes remarkably dissolves us inside the perspective of a black person in white land. Apart from Bol and Rial, everyone looks unwelcoming. As Bol sings "Peter Crouch," there is a sense of alienation strongly radiating from the room. Even their neighbor, an old lady, sends vibes of undesirability before actually speaking.
But His House falters with Rial. When she is lost navigating her way to the hospital, she stumbles upon some boys who, instead of helping, tell her to return to Africa. Before coming across them, she also finds a little kid but does not engage. The reason lies more in the color of the skin as that kid was white, and the boys were black. Placing a kind white doctor in the next scene serves as a juxtaposition shouting how it is not the skin but the human wearing it that makes a difference. All well and good, but the problem is, it seems shoved in to serve as a reminder of things just mentioned. Rial and Bol have gone through hell. There are two tribes from where Rial belongs, and both fight with each other. As Bol tries settling in this new environment, Rial's intentions suddenly change through a series of unbelievable incidents. She barely gives her best to adjust to this new neighborhood and gives up after a supernatural occurrence. Given Rial is established as a fighter, this shift falls out of place. What's bugging is that the film doesn't stand on concrete grounds to justify this behavior. A bit here, a bit there, and voila! Rial wants to go back. A ten-year-old lies with more credibility.
Perhaps the best, the closest Weekes gets to his vision, is at the dinner table where Bol is isolated with Rial because of the difference in their opinions. As the camera slowly pulls back, Rial is removed from the chair and Bol from his location. He is placed on the sea, which links to a key event. As he looks down, dead bodies start rising, signifying his past catching up on him. This mixture of personal and fantastical horror is what His House aims for but achieves this one time.
The whole experience of His House reminded me of Relic. Both films feature the kind of horror I really like. Both the films originate from the minds of exceptionally talented directors. But both films fail to reach the core of your heart. Like in Relic, I admired the technical effort and the story's ambition but found myself coldly distant from the characters. I understood the plight, but I never felt it. A running time in the bracket of 1 hour and 30 minutes is not justifiable for the story it reaches for. Movies such as Relic and His House deserve more. The characters deserve more. The viewers deserve more. Now that the body is found, let's hope it gets soul the next time.
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