🔗 Share this article

Over the past few seasons, horror cinema has frequently delved into unhealthy relationships with the same fervor as a cursed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (New; Partner) to long-term codependence (Together) to the occasional success story (Love-Struck), it's evident that love affairs are primarily blood-stained hell, and a pair venturing to a secluded spot together signifies a fresh tier of terror.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uncomfortable on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the new and highly secretive horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for about a year, which we learn early on has signified the period Liz has fled past relationships. Nevertheless, she seems optimistic about this one. She thinks she knows Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their initial moments together are neither as dotted with warning signs nor as suspiciously idyllic as other current characters in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a wary, dry comic timing, and Malcolm has a somewhat mumbled accent as he describes some oddities about his family-owned cabin in the woods (like the fact that he has a creepy cousin who lives nearby). But their awkwardness levels are complementary. They appear at ease together.

The director brings in discord through his shot choices, rather than micro-aggressions or past events.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are seldom completely concealed, but they're often partially blocked, viewed from strange perspectives, or framed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of empty space. This establishes a trend of confusion that continues as Liz believes she hears faint noises through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's posh bath, there's an intensely unforgettable overlay of the nearby stream flowing all around her, like she's about to go beyond reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a friend she phones when she's by herself at the lodge. Her acquaintance inquires if she did psychedelics; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

For a while, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed role as the woman in Malcolm's world – seems like it could head in any number of paths, its horror elements mixed together in a surreal mix. Is it a ghost story, a forest killer movie, or just a terrible trip? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a prolific run for the past 18 months with another movie scheduled next year, complicates efforts to discern, both in-movie (so many of the most unsettling early moments are moments just blurry or in the periphery of the vision) and extra-textually; his last two films were the tonally distinct serial-killer freakout Longlegs and the fate-based scary humor The Monkey. This eclecticism, combined with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could cause the latest release seem to some like a deceptive trick intended to embellish what is, fundamentally, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Maybe it is exactly that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it emphasizes its visceral effect on an viewer over a desire to twist that plot into a contemporary relationship parable. As smart as so many current scary films are, they frequently write toward message rather than filming for immediacy. As a result, some are starved for original imagery, unexpected juxtapositions or a feeling of genuine, strange mystery. Keeper has all of this, and Perkins knows just how far to push those components without permitting the movie to become vague mystical excess.

He also seems to recognize what a strong grounding element he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to do the typical masterful demo reel of a female on the verge of oblivion. Liz does get freaked out by the strange things that take place around her, and the role is scripted and performed with a particular straightforwardness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who mysteriously sidesteps inquiring what the heck is happening.) However Maslany delivers a additional layer to her acting in her unguarded times: a cynical flick of her gaze in one way or another, the tenuousness of her more polite smiles, the shorthand of both her familiarity and speed to irritation with her off-screen pal on the phone. Though no specific skeleton key to her painful history is revealed, the character still seems fully realized.

The same applies of the movie as a whole, too. It's not as complex as Sinners nor as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for innovative horror. But when Keeper concludes, its tight confines feel gratifying, correct and unlikely to generate a sequel. That neatness emphasizes some of its ideas in a way that the more obvious messaging of other romantic nightmare tales don't always manage: perhaps it requires a fable-like horror for the messy business of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• The film debuts in theaters on 14 November.