A couple flee South Sudan and end up trapped in an Essex house with peeling walls, dodgy wiring – and ghosts in the walls. Director Remi Weekes explains the ultra-scary film everyone wanted to snap up
There has never been a whole lot of overlap between the social realism of Ken Loach and the twisted horror of A Nightmare on Elm Street. But that’s about to change with the release of His House, a strikingly original debut from the gifted British film-maker Remi Weekes, which was snapped up by Netflix at Sundance earlier this year for an eight-figure sum.
His House follows a South Sudanese couple – Wunmi Mosaku as Rial, Sope Dirisu as her husband Bol – who are dumped on a bleak Essex housing estate while their appeal for asylum is considered. Their temporary home is blighted by peeling walls, dodgy wiring and hostile neighbours. Worse than that, it’s haunted. If they flee, Rial and Bol risk deportation for violating bail. Stay, however, and they will need to do battle with the wall-dwelling creatures, which appear to have followed them from Africa.
