Olivier Assayas’ new film is part of a new breed of horror movies creeping into the multiplexes, replacing jumps and shocks with existential dread: Get Out, It Comes At Night and the forthcoming A Ghost Story.

In Personal Shopper, meanwhile, Kristen Stewart plays Maureen, who by day works as an assistant to Kyra (Nora Von Waltstätten), a German supermodel/designer based in Paris. Maureen’s job ranges from collecting high fashion garments and accessories for Kyra’s many engagements to installing updates on her MacBook.

But Maureen is also a medium. The house Assayas’ showed us at the start of the film is the property where her twin brother, Lewis, died. “We made this oath,” Maureen confides to Ingo (Lars Eidinger). “Whoever died first would send the other a sign.” When the ‘signs’ come, they are a mix of the supernatural (full on ectoplasm shock) and the apparently mundane (anonymous text messages). Both in their way prove equally unsettling; and devilishly funny, in a Polanski way.

Michael Bonner