Having just caught a preview of The Killing of a Sacred Dear, one brilliant detail that keeps you in suspense is not knowing the reality of the film.

Lanthimos’ previous films Dogtooth and Alps were both extreme and farcical in their own way but set in the real world. Then The Lobster made this absurd surrealism the reality in the film. In Sacred Deer, when a family are the subject of a superstitious hex, you have no idea what the film is capable of and so it throws off all expectation by making anything possible. So so very clever.

I experienced this same effect recently when watching Take Shelter by Jeff Nichols. Having watched his debut, the gritty realistic Shotgun Stories and then his more recent science-fiction Midnight Special before going back to the acclaimed Take Shelter – I had no idea of the reality of the film and it kept me guessing, and I think I enjoyed it all the more for it.