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'His House' Review With Casey

Courtesy of 'His House' Movie

When a married couple move into a crumbling apartment in London, they begin suspecting it's haunted after witnessing peeling walls, spilled fruit, and wet footprints. I know this premise sounds familiar and overdone. There's plenty of haunted house movies in the past that bleed together by using the same ideas, the same twists, and the same techniques to scare viewers. Some of these movies include Darkness (2002), The Messengers (2007), The Haunting in Connecticut (2009), The Conjuring (2013), and We Are Still Here (2015). 

But His House presents the haunted house theme through a refreshingly different lens. The married couple are African refugees desperate to avoid their homeland and live in an unfamiliar country if it means living in peace. This refugee element adds an unexpected depth to the emotional struggles of the husband and wife trying to move on from their tragic past while straining to adapt to a new home (not just trying to understand or outwit a ghost). African folklore is also weaved nicely into the story to create a horror film with a unique voice and much-needed diversity for this genre (similar to the other recently released horror film Bad Hair currently available on Hulu).  

His House doesn't quite manage to be great, but at least it offers something different. The horror elements weren't that terrific, but the refugee elements made this film feel memorable and engaging. Sometimes people are not haunted by mere phantoms or evil spirits, but more realistically, they are haunted by their choices.