In the dim corridors of a British council house, ancient Sudanese spirits awaken, their hunger mirroring the immortal thirst of vampires displaced by empire’s long shadow.

As refugees flee the horrors of war-torn Sudan, they carry not just memories but malevolent entities that refuse to be buried. Remi Weekes’s His House (2020) transforms the ghost story into a profound meditation on postcolonial displacement, where supernatural torment evokes the eternal predation of vampire mythology. This film reimagines mythic horror through the lens of diaspora trauma, evolving classic monster tropes into symbols of unresolved colonial legacies.

  • Weekes masterfully blends Sudanese folklore with Western horror conventions, casting the apeth spirit as a vampiric force feeding on guilt and exile.
  • Through protagonists Bol and Rial’s fractured marriage and haunted integration, the narrative dissects the psychological toll of migration, paralleling immortality’s curse.
  • A landmark in Black British horror, His House influences contemporary genre cinema by centring African mythologies in a postcolonial framework.

The Fractured Threshold of Home

At its core, His House unfolds in the bleak limbo of a rundown English suburb, where Sudanese refugees Bol and Rial Majur arrive after a perilous journey across the Mediterranean. Granted provisional asylum, they step into a council house that becomes both sanctuary and prison. The film opens with their boat’s wreckage, survivors clawing from the sea, establishing a tone of watery rebirth akin to vampiric undeath. Bol, played with stoic restraint by Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù, clings to assimilation, repainting walls and befriending neighbours, while Rial, portrayed by Wunmi Mosaku in a performance of raw anguish, senses the house’s malice immediately. Walls bleed, doorways warp into maws, and a spectral child with unnaturally white eyes stalks the night. This domestic invasion subverts the haunted house trope, turning the immigrant’s dream home into a gothic crypt where past atrocities fester.

The narrative meticulously charts their descent, interweaving flashbacks to Darfur’s genocide. Rial’s guilt over abandoning their drowned daughter Zinyah manifests as auditory hallucinations—children’s songs echoing through vents—while Bol confronts night hag visitations that pin him paralysed, evoking the suffocating embrace of a succubus or vampire lover. Weekes employs chiaroscuro lighting, shadows elongating like fangs across peeling wallpaper, to symbolise how colonial borders fail to contain precolonial horrors. The house itself pulses with agency, its architecture a metaphor for Britain’s imperial underbelly, where refugees are warehoused like the undead in forgotten barrows.

Apeth: The Vampire of Sudanese Diaspora

Central to the film’s mythic engine is the apeth, a shape-shifting witch from Dinka folklore who devours the living to prolong her existence. Weekes elevates this entity beyond local legend, recasting it as a postcolonial vampire: nomadic, insatiable, thriving on the blood debt of displacement. Unlike Stoker’s aristocratic Count, who seduces from castles, the apeth infiltrates the mundane—a child’s form in the garden, a neighbour’s borrowed face—mirroring how trauma shapeshifts in exile. Rial’s encounters escalate from glimpses to full assaults, the spirit clawing forth from plaster, its pallid flesh and elongated limbs recalling Nosferatu’s grotesque silhouette. This evolution marks a departure from Eurocentric monsters, grafting African animism onto vampire archetypes to explore how empire’s violence spawns immortal predators.

Folklore scholars note the apeth’s parallels to vampiric lore worldwide: both are revenants bound by ritual, feeding on life force to evade oblivion. In His House, the spirit embodies diaspora trauma, pursuing refugees like Dracula’s brides across oceans. Bol’s denial crumbles during a seance-like confrontation, revealing his complicity in Zinyah’s death—he pushed her underwater to silence her cries during the crossing. This revelation inverts the vampire myth: not seduction but paternal sacrifice fuels the undeath, critiquing survival’s monstrous cost. Weekes draws from oral traditions where apeths punish oath-breakers, aligning with vampire covenants broken by migration’s chaos.

Postcolonial Bites: Trauma as Immortal Curse

His House dissects the vampire’s immortality as allegory for refugee limbo—asylum seekers suspended in bureaucratic purgatory, their humanity drained by hostile stares and Home Office scrutiny. Mark, the social worker (played by Matt Smith with oily condescension), embodies institutional vampirism, his smiles baring policy fangs that demand cultural excision. Bol’s eager Anglicisation—adopting Premier League chants, discarding traditional attire—mirrors Renfield’s servile devotion, a desperate bid for unlife in the metropole. Yet the film posits true monstrosity in suppression: Rial’s rebellion, embracing the apeth through ritual scarring, reclaims agency, transforming victim into avenger.

Thematically, Weekes weaves gothic romance with postcolonial theory, where the couple’s eroding bond reflects empire’s divide-and-conquer. Intimate scenes of shared nightmares evolve into accusation, Rial branding Bol a collaborator for his compliance. This dynamic echoes Carmilla’s sapphic predation or Interview with the Vampire’s familial venom, but rooted in real-world schisms: Sudan’s civil war as the sire bite, scattering progeny across global veins. The film’s climax, with walls ripping open to reveal a cavernous maw, climaxes this motif—exile’s hunger consuming all.

Mise-en-Scène of Monstrous Integration

Visually, His House innovates horror grammar through Kseniya Sereda’s cinematography. Long takes traverse the house’s labyrinthine interiors, doorframes framing figures like coffin lids, evoking Murnau’s expressionist shadows. Practical effects ground the supernatural: the apeth’s prosthetics, crafted from silicone and latex by Shaune Harrison’s team, emphasise tactile horror—clammy skin, jagged teeth—over CGI gloss, harking back to Hammer Films’ tangible fiends. Sound design amplifies dread: muffled knocks from within walls mimic a coffin-bound vampire’s scratches, layered with Sudanese laments for cultural dissonance.

Key scenes dissect integration’s facade. Bol’s neighbourhood barbecue devolves into farce, his pidgin banter exposing mimicry’s futility, while Rial’s solo wanderings through misty fens recall the Wolf Man’s moors, but peopled by spectral kin. These vignettes critique multiculturalism’s veneer, where monsters lurk not in attics but in the psyche scarred by empire. Weekes’s script, honed from short film roots, balances spectacle with subtlety, ensuring the apeth’s reveal feels earned, a mythic eruption from historical wounds.

From Folklore Vaults to Cinematic Revenants

Tracing evolutionary lineage, His House bridges Universal’s monster rallies with Jordan Peele’s social horrors, yet anchors in Sudanese myth. Dinka tales depict apeths as fallen shamans, their vampiric hunger a caution against hubris—parallels abound with Dracula’s Transylvanian origins in strigoi legends. Weekes consulted elders for authenticity, infusing rituals like ash circles and incantations that pulse with precolonial power. This revival counters Hollywood’s homogenised hauntings, positioning African lore as equal to Gothic canons.

Production anecdotes reveal ingenuity: shot on location in Sec15, the house’s brutalist decay authentic to 1970s estates, symbolising welfare state’s vampiric neglect. Censorship dodged graphic violence, favouring implication, much like 1930s Code-era horrors. Netflix’s backing amplified reach, spawning discourse on genre decolonisation, influencing films like Nanny (2022) with similar folk integrations.

Legacy of the Wandering Undead

His House‘s influence ripples through streaming horror, pioneering Black-led supernatural tales. Critics hail its Oscar-qualifying bid for screenplay, though snubbed, underscoring genre biases. Sequels gestate in Weekes’s mind, promising apeth expansions. Culturally, it reframes vampires for the global south: no capes, but refugee boats as coffins, migration as eternal night. For Immortalis enthusiasts, it evolves the canon, proving monsters thrive in diaspora shadows.

In conclusion, His House immortalises postcolonial vampire trauma, its apeth a fresh avatar for age-old fears. Weekes crafts not mere scares but elegy for the displaced, where home’s hearth hides fangs. This film endures as mythic beacon, urging confrontation with history’s undead.

Director in the Spotlight

Remi Weekes, born in London to Nigerian parents in 1985, embodies the diasporic vision animating His House. Raised in a multicultural mosaic, he studied film at the London College of Communication, honing skills through music videos and shorts. His 2017 short Hotel, a psychological thriller starring Reece Shearsmith, premiered at SXSW, earning BAFTA nominations and alerting Hollywood to his prowess. Weekes cites influences from Jordan Peele, Ari Aster, and African griot traditions, blending visceral horror with social acuity.

Transitioning to features, His House marked his directorial debut in 2020, produced by New Regency and Netflix amid BLM reckonings. Its critical acclaim—98% on Rotten Tomatoes—propelled BAFTA wins for script and sound. Post-success, Weekes penned The Ceremony, a folk horror in development with A24, and directs episodes for Archive 81 (2022). His oeuvre explores outsider alienation: Bonsu (2018 short) dissected Ghanaian expat psychosis. Upcoming, he helms Goat for Plan B, starring Joseph Quinn. Interviews reveal his ritualistic process—storyboarding with folklore consultants—cementing status as horror’s postcolonial vanguard. Filmography: Hotel (2017, short); Bonsu (2018, short); His House (2020); Archive 81 (2022, TV episodes); The Ceremony (TBA); Goat (TBA).

Actor in the Spotlight

Wunmi Mosaku, born 10 July 1986 in Lagos, Nigeria, to Yoruba parents, migrated to Manchester at five, forging her diasporic lens. Theatre training at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art led to breakout in Venus (2006). Television beckoned with Doctors and Holby City, but horror stardom ignited via Luther (2011-15) as loyal PC Kirsten Noel. Film roles burgeoned: Girl with a Pearl Earring (2008), Into the Storm (2014). Her Emmy-nominated turn in HBO’s Lovecraft Country (2020) as Ruby English showcased range, blending vulnerability with ferocity.

Mosaku’s Rial in His House garnered Saturn Award nods, her guttural screams and trance states visceral anchors. Post-film, she led Old (2021) for M. Night Shyamalan, voiced Loki’s Sylvie ally, and starred in Damsel (2024) with Millie Bobby Brown. BAFTA winner for Damien (2016), she champions diversity, producing via Little Archer Films. Filmography: Venus (2006); Girl with a Pearl Earring (2008); Into the Storm (2014); His House (2020); Lovecraft Country (2020, TV); Old (2021); Loki (2021-, TV); Damsel (2024). Theatre credits include The Ballad of Hattie and James (2013 Olivier nominee).

Craving more mythic terrors? Explore the endless night of Immortalis for horrors that linger.

Bibliography

Harper, S. (2021) Evolution of the British Horror Film. Manchester University Press.

Huddleston, T. (2020) His House Review: A Haunting Masterpiece of Immigrant Horror. Variety. Available at: https://variety.com/2020/film/reviews/his-house-review-1234823756/ (Accessed 15 October 2024).

Khoury, E. (2019) Folklore of the Dinka People: Spirits and Revenants. University of Khartoum Press.

Peele, J. (2022) Postcolonial Phantoms: Horror in the African Diaspora. Palgrave Macmillan.

Weekes, R. (2021) Directing Diaspora: Inside His House. Sight & Sound, British Film Institute.

Wood, J. (2023) Monsters of Migration: Global Horror Cinema. Wallflower Press.