2024 In Review: What the Hell, The Coffee Table!?!?

So, I recently was able to start my Shudder subscription back up again, as I needed it for an upcoming project I am working on. Since I am smart sometimes, I decided to do it so that my account would be back up just in time for Joe Bob Briggs and The Last Drive-In, which aired this past Friday night. I just really needed to "escape" with Joe Bob, Darcy, and all the other mutants out there for a few hours since it had been months since the last special.

After The Last Drive-In finished, I eagerly awaited what movie would be shown next. Awaiting that post-TLDI reveal has become something of a pastime in our household, as we used to love to just let Shudder determine how the rest of our Friday night was going to play out by what movies they decided to air afterward.

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So this past week, I was stoked as hell when the title cards came up for one of the most talked-about movies in horror circles throughout 2024: Caye Casas' The Coffee Table. It's a film I missed because of a variety of reasons last year (mostly timing more than anything — our move to Vegas just destroyed my ability to keep up on anything during the last few months of 2024).

Going into the film, I didn't know much about it other than there was a coffee table involved and it was an experience that left a lot of people shaken to their core. But that was it. Color me intrigued, for sure. And when I saw that Shudder had programmed it right after the one-two punch of Phantom of the Opera and Dario Argento's Opera, I was in. My other half went into the kitchen to bake some cookies, and I settled in for what I was hoping would be a memorable viewing experience.

And holy crap did it ever leave its mark on me — I don't think anything could have fully prepared me for The Coffee Table whatsoever, but I mean that in the best possible way.

As it starts, The Coffee Table slowly pulls you into its story, where you're like, "Okay, so where is the horror?" But suddenly, it feels like there's this bus that comes barreling at you out of nowhere as it mows down your unsuspecting body and your immediate reaction is, "Wait, WHAT?" Then, as the story spirals further downward, the more wrecked your nerves are until The Coffee Table's stunning conclusion leaves you in an emotional heap on your couch as you try to come to terms with the absolutely brutal and warped ride that you've just been on for nearly 90 minutes.

It's hard to talk about how and why The Coffee Table works as well as it does as it is an experience that benefits from a "less you know the better" approach. I mean, I don't know if "better" is the right word here, considering certain elements of the story, but I do think that the film's shocking moments are extremely powerful if you don't see them coming, and that shock that you are experiencing rolls well into all the cinematic chaos that awaits you throughout the second half of The Coffee Table.

What I can say is that co-writer/director Caye Casas has meticulously crafted this bleak portrait of humanity that examines how the most mundane of acts can end up becoming the most catastrophic, and it completely destroyed me in ways I could have never expected. At the same time though, there's this pitch black comedic undercurrent to the material here as well that somehow works exceedingly well despite the fact that the story is not a humorous one by any means. There is a razor-thin and very specific line that Casas walks here, and he does it brilliantly.

All you need to know going into The Coffee Table is that the story is centered around a couple — Jesús and María — who are celebrating the arrival of their newborn son Cayetanín. We learn that the couple struggled to expand their family over the last few years and that this stress has been reverberating throughout their strained marriage, but they are now eager to start looking towards the future finally. Before the couple is set to welcome Jesús' brother Carlos and his 18-year-old girlfriend Cristina over to the apartment they recently inherited so that they can meet little Cayetanín, the new parents decide to do a little furniture shopping.

This expedition, a seemingly innocuous task all of us grown-ups have probably experienced at some point in our lives, seems like a ritual of adulthood and nothing more at best: Jesús and María are shopping for a coffee table and there is a bit of friction as they disagree over the table that the hubby loves but the wife sees as nothing more than a ridiculous eyesore. Jesús explains that he rarely gets a say in things anymore, and just really wants this table, and María decides to let her hubby have the win and let him get the table he wants.

María heads out to buy some groceries so that she can cook for their visitors whose arrival is imminent, leaving Jesús at home to finish assembling the eponymous furniture and keep an eye on the baby. And that’s where I want to stop in terms of plot revelations, but everything that unfolds from here on out in The Coffee Table will completely obliterate your nerves and then some.

So many folks have described The Coffee Table as cruel, relentless, horrific, mean — you name it. And all of those descriptors are accurate if I’m being totally honest. But the thing that struck me while I was watching the film is how a lot of what happens here is staged very much like the most twisted episode of a classic sitcom ever. In the last 5 minutes of the movie, I was practically waiting for Mr. Furley to come running into the room so that Don Knotts could mug for the camera or something because that's how all of the madness in The Coffee Table is staged in its unbelievable finale.

Make no mistake, this is a grave story that packs an emotional wallop that feels unlike anything I've experienced in some time. But that pitch black comedic undercurrent that I mentioned previously that helps propel the latter half of The Coffee Table feels as if Lars Von Trier had decided to direct an episode of Frasier where every character's worst tendencies come out all at once. At one point in the movie, there's a dog that ends up becoming a factor in the story (don't worry, fellow animal lovers — it's nothing like that), and honestly, I sat up straight on my couch, realizing just what was going to happen, and I actually exclaimed, "Oh no, no, no, NO..." because I couldn't believe Casas was going to go there.

For anyone who is curious about The Coffee Table but is worried about the material or just what makes it so disturbing, the one thing I will say is that this isn't a Serbian Film situation at all. Sure, there are some really messed up elements in this story, but there's nothing here that is incendiary or is looking to just shock you for the sake of shocking you by promoting societal taboos. Casas' approach to the material here is purposeful, as he examines the cruelty that often accompanies the randomness of our existence with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek.

I don't know if The Coffee Table is a movie I would recommend to everyone, but I do know that it's been a long time since a movie absolutely obliterated me from the inside out the way this one did, and I think that's what I appreciated the most about it. The other thing I can say is that, as the movie was wrapping up, my other half came into the room from baking just as everything was culminating in the film's finale, and when it was done he said, "Well, THAT was something else." And I couldn't agree more.

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