Two South Sudanese refugees (Wunmi Mosaku, Sope Dirius) are mourning their daughter who didn’t survive crossing the Mediterranean; in Britain, they are assigned a spacious but shabby house. The immigrant experience is naturally disturbing on a personal level, so why not turn it into a horror movie? The lead characters soon feel a presence in their new home, both alien and familiar at the same time, connected to their past lives. The film cleverly ties the supernatural to the awkward attempts an immigrant makes to fit in. Dark but elegant, with persuasive scares, rooted in ancient mythology and the horrors of current events.

2020-Britain. 93 min. Color. Widescreen. Produced by Aidan Elliott, Martin Gentles, Ed King, Roy Lee, Arnon Milchan. Written and directed by Remi Weekes. Cast: Wunmi Mosaku (Rial), Sope Dirisu (Bol), Matt Smith (Mark), Javier Botet.

Trivia: First shown at the Sundance film festival, then released on Netflix.

Last word: “I kind of drew on my experiences growing up in London and being a person of colour and being amongst a community that’s been othered. We’re often torn in two different ways – this one side of us that wants to try and assimilate and fit in and try and disappear within the culture. But then there’s the other side of us that wants to rebel from that, wants to be proud of our background and our history. We cling to that and those two sides are always battling within ourselves and I thought it would be really interesting to portray that within the married couple and have this being the emotional crux of the film.” (Weekes, Sci Fi Now)

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