This is a Spanish black comedy about a dysfunctional couple (Estefanía de los Santos and David Pareja) who get into a row over the husband’s impulsive purchase: an unbreakable coffee table that costs more than an arm and a leg.

The setup already seems a left-field choice of subject matter for a comedy, but that is only one bloody half of it. Without spoiling the film or your lunch, Caye Casas’ chamber piece takes a dark turn that casts glass-topped irony over the couple’s ill-timed lunch with guests – one of whom obliviously wears a “No Bad Days” t-shirt.

It shares this middle-class misery farce with Speak No Evil (currently enjoying a pointless remake), another sick joke where you can’t look away. But Casas’ movie lacks the tonal consistency of the Danish flick, randomly mixing realistic and oddball elements; the husband finds himself batting away advances from both his furniture salesman (Eduardo Antuña) and 13-year-old neighbour (Gala Flores).

But what The Coffee Table lacks in stability it makes up for in tension, turning the screws ever tighter as the ghost at the feast looms closer into view. And while it raises some interesting themes (martyrdom symbolism, casual child abuse, the decline of quality manufacturing), it is the picture’s basic humanity that stays with you. Despite the darkness, it is never gratuitous or nihilistic. In its own humorous way, the horror is designed to put the petty fight over furniture into perspex-ive.