In short: The House of Snails (2021)

Original title: La casa del caracol

Warning: I’ll have to spoil the next-to-last twist!

Antonio Prieto (Javier Rey), full-time writer with writer’s block as well as part-time prick, moves to a small Spanish village for inspiration. Because it’s apparently that kind of day, he acquires a dog nobody shows any interest in and a potential love interest in one Berta (Paz Vega) while he’s still arriving. Though it’s not all good, for he also begins to encounter the first of a lot of curious superstitions and rituals the villagers hold to. Some, though by far not enough to be good for a movie title, are snail-related. Most of the superstitions, however, concern the village curse which is supposed to explain the large number of deformations among the local population. Apparently – this is something Antonio will take some time to find out – every decade or so, someone is possessed by (or begins embodying) an evil spirit and rips and tears through the population until killed.

Of course, this is also the kind of place where a mentally ill man is locked up in a shed in the woods, so one might doubt the veracity of the tale.

All the while, Antonio gets closer to Berta, and pisses off most everyone else in the village, until a series of killings – first of animals, then of a girl – starts. You’ll never guess who the killer is, right?

Or at least, that’s what Macarena Astorga’s film genuinely seems to believe. I suppose the film is working from the theory that most viewers will never have seen a movie with a ridiculous twist in their lives, and so will eventually play that “reveal” of something most viewers will have feared is going to be the explanation of the plot in excruciating detail that nearly borders on parody. This so-called big twist is only made more palatable by the fact that the film’s final twist is even more hair-raisingly contrived. Hooray?

It’s a bit of a shame, too, for whenever the film pretends to be more of a folk horror film than a stupid example of psychological horror, it’s perfectly decent, even with a couple of cool little flourishes when it comes to the villagers’ beliefs. Sure, Astorga’s work at creating mood is still only middling here, at best, but I’d rather have continued watching the decent, middling folk horror movie than the braindead bit of psycho horror it becomes.