Midsommar: Florence Pugh leads folk horror from Hereditary director

Pugh plays Dani, a young woman dragged along to a suspect summer camp in rural Sweden by her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor). What ensues as these celebrations naturally go off the rails is still anyone's guess, but the early images of crosses, dancing circles, white summer dresses and floral crowns suddenly seem sinister. It's a 'nine-day festival that only happens every 90 years', so we're told – and superstition feels like the best sentiment, as nothing happens by chance in Aster's work.

If you compare the first trailer of Midsommar to the one for Hereditary, there are similarities in the repeated sounds – first the clicking, now heavy breathing – and the quick glimpses of traumatic, violent images. Aster's first feature dealt in subversive, shocking twists, which sets up Midsommar for an even more unnerving, but all the more absorbing story.

Midsommar is billed for an August 2019 release – but our bets lie on an early premiere at a certain Cannes Film Festival in May. Stay tuned as the sunny, sinister plot thickens.