10 Recent Horror Films That Didn't Insult Your Intelligence
9. His House
2020 demonstrated the cathartic need to artistically represent the disturbing reality we have all been forced to live with, yet the other social injustices the world still endures are every bit as real.
The previous decade's obsession with torture porn has thankfully been replaced with movies like His House, a film that tackles the themes of immigration, racism and survivor's guilt that are all too familiar these days. Director Remi Weekes pulls no punches - you want horror? Just turn on the television and watch the news.
Married couple Bol and Rial are refugees, newly arrived in the UK and housed by the immigration department in a depressingly real London housing estate, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, a meagre cheque and the repetitive failures of a state-sanctioned welfare system.
Living in utter squalor and grinning gratefully through gritted teeth, Bol's naive optimism is shattered when ghosts begin literally crawling through the walls. No amount of redecoration or denial will curb the tidal wave of grief and regret that both he and Rial carry with them, mourning the death of their child.
It would be a shame to give away the doozy of a plot twist here, but the mechanism of guilt used by writers Felicity Evans and Toby Venables strikes a particularly haunting chord. The overt horror elements are also handled expertly, and the demonic Apeth is every bit as sinister as you'd hope for.