The House of the Snail is set in a town in the Andalusian mountains of the 70s, with a cast of big-name actors and a combination of horror movies and literary references to pack too many stories. The most important and interesting is that linked to the deep Spain of myths and legends. The protagonist, a young writer played by Javier Rey, rents a house on the outskirts of a white town to isolate himself from the world and write his next novel there. When he gets there, he finds an abandoned dog, two mysterious girls, a one-eyed old woman, and an openly hostile condition reinforced by the town’s only neighbor who seems content with his presence, played by Paz Vega.
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But what feels like a movie about ancient fears, beasts, and self-reliant people ends in ragtag, reckless delirium. The importance and appeal of the typewriter, the ghosts and demons of letters, will be present from the start, but crossing Stephen King with the imaginary Cristina García Rodero to design this native of Jack Torrance trapped between too many cans of Mezcal Lagging. That the author is addicted to this hallucinogenic drink does not justify the awkward ends or endings reserved for characters who seemed important. Anyway, not even for mania and delirium tremens. In her first feature, Macarena Astorga adapts the novel by screenwriter Sandra García Nieto and although she sometimes manages to destabilize the state of the old house, the inhabitants of the city and its legends, she is completely lost when the characters secondary are reduced. to zero and the main character puzzles the viewer, to say the least.
THE HOUSE OF THE SNAIL
Address: Macarena Astorga.
Performers: Javier Rey, Paz Vega, Carlos Alcántara, Norma Martínez.
Character: “Thriller”. Spain, 2021.
Duration: 103 minutes.
All civilization to your measure lingers here.
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