Some horror films rely on darkness, blood, or monsters. The Coffee Table doesn’t need any of that. Its terror grows in daylight, inside a perfectly ordinary apartment, fed by routine, resentment, and the slow rot of domestic life. Directed by Caye Casas, this Spanish indie gem is a claustrophobic and uncomfortable descent—not into madness, but into something far more familiar: the collapse of empathy.

🎬 The Coffee Table (La mesita del comedor)	ℹ Movie Details
Country	Spain
📅 Year	2022
🎭 Genre	Psychological horror, Domestic drama
⏳ Runtime	91 min
🎬 Director	Caye Casas
⭐ Main Actors	David Pareja, Estefanía de los Santos, Josep Riera

The premise is minimal: a couple buys a small coffee table. That’s all. But from this simple object, a whole system of tensions unfolds. Passive-aggressive exchanges, unmet expectations, emotional withdrawal—all accumulate, silently. The table becomes a trigger, a witness, and eventually, a symbol of something darker.

The performances are brutally honest. David Pareja and Estefanía de los Santos embody characters that are both painfully real and subtly exaggerated, walking a fine line between absurdity and realism. Their dialogue cuts like broken glass—funny, cruel, pathetic. There’s humor, but it’s the kind that makes you wince.

Visually, the film is intimate and spare. Most scenes take place in the same few rooms, which only adds to the oppressive atmosphere. The framing is often tight, confrontational. There’s no escape. No music to soothe. Just silences, glances, interruptions, and the growing sense that something irreparable is taking shape.

The Coffee Table is not horror in the conventional sense. It’s a domestic autopsy. It reveals the mechanics of a toxic relationship without judgment or redemption. There’s no catharsis—only exposure. And that’s what makes it so disturbing. You recognize things: a phrase you’ve heard before, a gesture you’ve made, a silence you’ve kept.

This is a film that forces you to sit with discomfort. To question the roles we perform in private. To consider how violence can be slow, polite, even civilized—until it’s not.

A film about what we keep on the surface—and what we let rot underneath.