This Underseen Netflix Horror Movie Has A 100% Fresh Rating on Rotten Tomatoes
“Do you think it is bumps in the night that frighten me?”
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Not only is His House (2020) the highest-rated horror movie on Netflix, it’s the second highest-rated movie of any genre on the streaming service. It also has a “100% Fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Despite all of this, His House is rarely talked about in the same conversations as more popular horror movies on Netflix. One reason for this may be that people shy away from the serious topics central to the plot of His House.
His House is a psychological horror movie about two refugees, Bol and Rial, who survive a treacherous journey fleeing South Sudan to find asylum in England. The couple’s daughter did not survive the the trip and Bol and Rial grieve while acclimating to their new life in government housing in London. They are granted provisional asylum told they will be deported if there are any issues. When it becomes clear that their home is haunted by a sinister presence, Bol and Rial have nowhere to go and no one to turn to.
Horror movies often use isolation to emphasize how characters are vulnerable to the threat of the monster (whether those monsters are real humans, paranormal forces, actual creatures, etc). Usually the characters are isolated from potential help by distance, because they are in a remote location like a cabin in the woods. His House is interesting because it shows a couple living in the city and surrounded by people, but isolated by the threat of deportation.
If Bol and Rial were typical horror movie characters being stalked at a cabin in the woods, their problem would be that if they call for help, no one will hear them. Instead, the couple’s problem is that others would hear and respond to their cries for help, but it could cost them their probational asylum and they would be sent back to war-torn South Sudan. Their immigration status renders them vulnerable and resolved to endure the horrors of their haunted home in the same isolation as if there were no one around them at all.
This is a great example of why horror is the perfect vehicle to explore political issues. His House depicts a haunting in a genuinely scary way and the movie has a dark and shocking twist-ending. It is technically proficient at the classic elements of a horror movie. The audience also gains access to a new perspective on what horrors exist in our world outside of the movie — the idea that we could be isolated from other humans by more than just physical boundaries.
Viewers may leave His House with a profound new fear: that we could someday find ourselves alone even while we are surrounded by other people.
His House (2020) is currently streaming on Netflix.
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