Some houses are born bad … What it was like before, whether its personality was molded by the people who lived here, or the things they did, or whether it was evil from the start, are all questions I cannot answer.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
A good ghost story is often only as spooky as its location. Haunted houses have been a staple in horror for centuries. It’s hard to look at a decrepit Victorian building and not imagine a resident ghost floating through the halls or an Addams Family-esque troupe of ghouls trapped inside.
Sharing our homes with a ghost or two is a frightening thought. The places we live should be stable, consistent and predictable. But fears of invisible intruders have disturbed humankind since the early ages, with evidence suggesting that even the Romans thought it was an ethical responsibility to disclose the presence of supernatural forces in a property: an unspoken obligation that continues in the housing market in some parts of the world today. The idea of a poltergeist “possessing” a home reinforces this long-held idea that ghosts own the buildings they inhabit—a more permanent fixture than the current mortgage payers. A discomforting thought considering home is where we are often at our most vulnerable.
Creators have built upon this fear, turning homes against their tenants in twisted ways in horror media. The haunted house is a perfect setting for addressing cultural and societal issues, as well as personal torment. The motif has been continuously built upon over the decades, finding its footing in the Gothic era as crumbling castles began to signal cultural change, then rocketing forward in popularity in the 20th century—thanks, in large part, to Shirley Jackson’s ability to breathe life into fictional buildings while commenting on identity and the trappings of domesticity.
The haunted house has undergone reconstruction in recent years. Instead of spectres of Victorian children and women in white gowns floating through grand houses to torment the gullible new homeowners who couldn’t believe the incredible deal they got on the long-abandoned mansion in the middle of nowhere, monsters reside in the very foundations of the building. No longer hiding in plain sight, creatures creep behind the cladding, adding a further layer of mystery to their presence.
Films like creepy doll drama The Boy (2016) combined the spooky elements of a classic haunted house story and the terror of home invasion. In a dramatic Scooby-Doo style reveal, we learn humans are the real threat as the supernatural occurrences were really caused by someone living inside the very walls of the manor, spying on the nanny. People living in the walls of a seemingly abandoned building was even the central focus of a recent Walking Dead episode (Season 11, Episode 6). But evil seeping into the foundations of our homes has perhaps been used most effectively in Remi Weekes’ His House (2020) and Natalie Erika James’ Relic (2020).
Proceed with caution: major spoilers for both films follow. I’d recommend checking them out before reading further. Both are well worth your time. Stream His House on Netflix and Relic on Shudder.
His House follows two Sudanese asylum seekers, Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) and Bol (Sope Dirisu), as they arrive in the UK and settle into a council house for a probationary period. Their oppressive living rules state they can’t move house, but there’s something dangerous living in the walls. Relic is an intergenerational story following Kay (Emily Mortimer) and her daughter Sam (Bella Heathcote) as they arrive at the old family home when Kay learns her mother, Edna (Robyn Nevin), has gone missing. When Edna reappears with no memory of where she has been and reveals worries of an intruder, the family discovers something much more frightening may be hiding behind the building’s mysterious creaks and groans. Both films use the haunted house motif to full effect, but the supernatural scares are grounded by very human experiences.
The houses in each film are excellent examples of unnerving locations, featuring many strange happenings we would expect to see in a classic haunting story. Shadows slink silently through the house and objects move on their own. It’s when the characters—and the audience—begin to dig deeper, into the very walls, that we begin to truly uncover the horrors these characters are facing.
When Rial and Bol arrive at an undisclosed council estate in England, they are repeatedly told by the social workers that they are very lucky to have such a large house. Mark (Matt Smith) goes so far as to call it “a palace” as the front door falls off its hinges and the couple eye the mountain of rubbish piled on their front lawn when they first arrive. Rotten food has been left behind and the electrics don’t work: “Don’t worry about the smell. If you open a window, it should air out. But the main thing is it’s yours,” Mark tells them. Despite the mess, Bol and Rial have opportunity here and they envision it very briefly—until the screaming starts and the walls begin to rattle.
His House is about “two people trying to survive, after surviving, and how to move forward from trauma and guilt,” Weekes told Den of Geek. The film effectively uses horror to confront coping mechanisms. Before figuring out how to move forward, Rial and Bol turn a blind eye to their past, but in very different ways.
Rial appears to be living in a state of denial. She thinks they don’t belong in Britain and wants to return to Sudan, believing they can be reunited with their missing child, Nyagak. Her feeling of displacement is emphasised when she ventures outside to find the doctor’s surgery. The unfamiliar streets turn into a labyrinth. Her disorienting journey reflects her lifelong struggle to fit in. At the doctors, she reveals she was caught between two warring tribes in Sudan. Bearing markings on her face and arm, we learn she gave the ones on her arm to herself “when I found my family butchered … I survived by belonging nowhere.” It’s entirely possible that Rial feels like a ghost, floating through life with no real home: an isolating survival method. Her resistance to the new lifestyle suggests she isn’t comfortable calling this new house “home”, and her belief that the couple is being tormented by an “apeth” or “night witch” heightens her unwillingness to settle permanently. The apeth’s presence only reinforces her belief that they don’t belong, as it demands they repay a debt—a life for a life—leaning into her guilt: why should she be comfortable in a new home when so many innocent lives didn’t make it?
Rial, lost in the estate. His House (2020)
Bol, on the other hand, dives head-first into British culture, ready to start his new life. During the first day in their new home, he bags up their old possessions before heading to the high street where he sings football songs in the local pub then has a cup of tea with a McVItie’s Digestive in the evening, even dipping the biscuit into his brew. He embraces sitting at the kitchen table, using cutlery, and dresses like the models on a clothing poster. While he may be desperately trying to prove himself as “one of the good ones”, he is also looking to block out his past, to outrun his grief and guilt instead of facing it directly.
While the couple look in different directions—one back and the other forwards—they both avoid staring into the eye of the beast that plagues them: survivor’s guilt. We discover that crawling through the walls of their new house are the ghosts of those who lost their lives during their journey from Sudan. This is made all the more devastating as pieces of the larger puzzle fall into place, revealing how far the couple were willing to go to survive.
Bol and Rial experience the hauntings in very different ways too. The ghosts torment Bol. They are aggressive and frightening, and the ghost of young Nyagak is dangerously tangible—capable of wielding knives and flipping light switches. Rial, on the other hand, engages in discussion with the supernatural forces that present themselves to her. After all, as she tells Bol, she has witnessed the real horrors of mankind so why would she be afraid of ghosts?
Nyagak by the large gap in the wall. His House (2020)
While the hauntings of His House are caused by an attempt to move forward, the supernatural events in Relic are caused by the characters’ desire to hold onto the past.
The Australian psychological horror is a blunt allegory for Alzheimer’s disease. Kay and Sam arrive at Edna’s home to find post-it notes with useful memos like “take pills” stuck on various countertops and food left out for a pet that has passed on. Kay acknowledges her mum might be struggling a bit with memory, telling a police officer “she forgets things”, shrugging off the forgetful behaviour as a part of growing old. But the house itself suggests the reality is worse than they realised—or perhaps were willing to accept.
A strange black mould grows on the walls: small dots at first which rapidly spread as the film progresses. Boxes of photographs and knickknacks—the little things we all collect throughout our lifetimes—are boxed up and stored away in a spare room. Most peculiar of all is a long cupboard with a recently installed lock on the door. When Edna reappears, bearing a rash that looks like the mould growing on the walls, she tells Sam “I don’t like this place”, referring to the creepy cupboard, claiming it’s where she thought the intruder was getting in.
The decaying, disorienting haunted house in Relic mirrors Edna’s deteriorating health. As the house’s condition worsens, so does Edna’s illness. In her desperation to hold onto memories, we see her walk outside with a photo album, trying to eat and bury the photos. This erratic behaviour is really an act of preservation: by moving the items outside of the house, they might not become contaminated by the dark mould slowly building inside. “I wish I could bury myself so it can’t get at me,” Edna tells Kay, highlighting her own discomfort in staying at the house; a place she no longer calls “home”.
Kay and Edna, Relic (2020)
The houses are full of unsettling creaks, groans and thuds, intensifying as the weight of each family’s struggle becomes heavier, adding pressure to the building’s foundations. But what makes these films so unnerving is that these sounds—and the most horrifying aspects of the hauntings—are hidden within the walls.
Something living in the walls is a terrifying concept, perhaps even more so than room-sharing with a ghost. At least we see our tormentor clearly when they are out in the open. But a presence concealed behind the drywall and the bricks, creeping through the cracks and open panels without our knowing, is a chilling thought.
Bol and Rial have attempted to bury the memory of those who died on their journey, consequently entombing them within the walls of their new home. Edna’s illness begins with small moments of forgetfulness as the disease attacks the foundations of her mind. While shadowy figures openly move throughout the main rooms, it’s the uncontrollable decay hidden in the dark recesses of the house that’s truly frightening.
In both films, the families resort to destruction: an effort to break the walls and ultimately rid the home of their demons. For Bol, it begins with the peeling away of wallpaper before escalating to smashing large holes in the walls with a hammer as he chases Nyagak’s spirit. He quickly slips away from the eager handyman role we see him embrace at the beginning of the film and instead turns to volatile acts of destruction, which are ultimately more damaging to the living inhabitants of the house, threatening their asylum status. His anger only seems to provoke the ghosts, who are willing to reveal themselves to him but scamper quickly back into the foundations whenever he tries to gain control of the situation.
Bol, His House (2020)
Sam, venturing into the locked cupboard, discovers an unsettling annexe. Venturing into the lost parts of her grandmother’s mind, she finds more post-it notes like “my mother had green eyes” and “my name is Edna” taped to the boxes full of relics from Edna’s past, containing the sentimental things that make us us. The corridors in this annexe are uncanny. They look familiar, like the main body of the house, but they shift and shrink. There are dead ends and moving walls. As Sam ventures deeper in, it becomes clear that this annexe is where Edna was when she was reported missing: lost in herself. Sam calls for help and bangs on the wall, revealing the source of the unusual thudding audible in the main part of the house.
Looking for Sam, Kay also becomes trapped in this maze, with a monstrous version of Edna pursuing her. Sam fights to break out, smashing through the cladding and the drywall as she and Kay try to escape. As the pair clamber out of the dark annexe through their makeshift doorway, Kay is momentarily dragged back through the gap by the monstrous version of Edna, feeling the literal push-pull of responsibility.
These moments of destruction, violence and frustration ultimately lead to the crucial conclusion in both films: acceptance. Their monsters don’t stay hidden. In both cases, they follow the protagonists to the real world once they are ready and willing to face their fears.
Counterbalancing Bol’s destructive reaction to his trauma, Rial engages in quiet conversations with the spirits. Encountering the ghosts of her friends, she comes to realise that Nyagak is dead, taken by the sea. The apeth tempts her, offering to return Nyagak in exchange for Bol’s life, presenting Rial with a knife. Bol’s life would repay their debt. The night witch repeatedly tempts Bol with self-harm, reflecting the damaging nature of toxic masculinity, the need for men to be stoic and in control through difficult times, and the ultimate toll this takes on their mental health. In the film’s climax, Bol accepts the apeth’s demands. Rial watches as the creature bursts through the floor and quite literally gets under Bol’s skin. Nyagak’s ghost holds her hand as she watches, but Rial lets go of the little girl and kills the apeth, saving them both.
Ghosts crowd the house. His House, Netflix poster (2020)
The social workers return to inspect Bol and Rial’s home. The walls have been plastered and the hole in the floor is covered by a rug. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start to the healing process. We discover that the ghosts are now fully present in their house. Rather than hiding in the darkness or the walls, this “palace” is not just for the two of them. Large rooms that once felt empty are now crowded with spirits. The witch may be dead, but the ghosts stay with them. “Your ghosts follow you,” Bol says, “They never leave. They live with you. It’s when I let them in I could start to face myself.” Acceptance, it seems, is the first step in self-forgiveness and moving forward.
The tonal shift at the end of Relic is particularly striking. Kay, once confronted with the “monster” which is possessing her mother, accepts the reality of the situation. Instead of fleeing, she stays in the house as it continues to decompose. Moving from nail-biting horror to heart-breaking tenderness, Kay carries Edna up the stairs where we see her slowly peel away her mother’s layers: first her clothing, then her skin, like a soft outer shell, to reveal nothing but a skeleton. But the skeleton is still there, still breathing, and needs to be cared for. It’s a loving scene, not cruel or grotesque, but filled with kindness. The film ends with the three generations lying on a bed together, accepting their responsibilities. As they lay quietly, Sam notices a small black spot on Kay’s back: Kay is marked with death too, as we all are. One day the chain will move along, with Sam in Kay’s position, because death is the hard, inevitable reality of life we often choose to ignore.
Edna, Kay, and Sam. Relic (2020)
When discussing hauntings, author and professor Dale Bailey stated “the fear of an invasion of the domestic space - the safest space, the home - by forces natural or supernatural seems to be pretty universal. And the fear of your bonds with your most loved ones disintegrating is probably even more so.” By infesting the foundations of their homes with realistic human fears, His House and Relic perfectly capture this recognisable state of terror: not only is a safe space acting strangely, but all of their relationships are fractured by the grief, guilt and trauma they each struggle to acknowledge. The presence of a ghost openly wandering the halls in haunted house stories often provides humans with a scapegoat: something on which we can pin the blame for terrible or shameful actions. By hiding the ghost away, we are forced to peel back the layers to discover what lies beneath, confronting our demons head-on.
Haunted houses are common in media. We know them well. Digging deeper into the very foundations lets us explore new ground. Hiding ghosts within the walls allows us to examine deeply human fears, as the foundations of our routines and basic needs become infected with darkness. Beyond the supernatural, Rial, Bol, Sam, Kay and Edna are all grappling with the things we take for granted in our daily lives: family, safety, community, health, sanctuary, belonging. By rotting away the foundational framework, our real fears are laid bare and we’re forced to accept the hard truths and responsibilities in life. Is there anything scarier?