El Huésped
2022 · 10m · España
Directed by Óscar Pérez
Genres: drama, horror, thriller
Tones: contemplative, dark, tense
Young writer Elvira Medina returns from a retreat with her children to the family home, where she discovers that her husband Enrique has brought a special guest; at first, returning to the vineyards seems cosy and peaceful, but soon everything turns into a horrible nightmare.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
The domestic-horror-invasion setup is so well-trodden that Pérez would've needed to flip the knife sideways to make it sing—instead, El Huésped settles into competent unease without the subversive teeth that makes this premise worth revisiting.
Pérez orchestrates the slow collapse of sanctuary with formal precision, using the vineyard's geometric calm as a deliberate counterweight to the psychological dread creeping through each frame—this is horror that understands its own grammar, the way architectural stability becomes narrative irony.
The film's architecture hinges on a single recurring choice: how Pérez lets the camera linger just a beat too long on Enrique's face during mundane moments, turning ordinary courtesy into something that feels obscene, which is the entire film in miniature.