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In recent years, scary movies has frequently explored toxic romance with the same intensity as a doomed dating app. From engineered first encounters (Fresh; Partner) to long-term codependence (United) to the rare happy ending (Love-Struck), it's evident that romantic relationships are primarily blood-stained hell, and a couple traveling to a isolated location together represents a new tier of fright.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uncomfortable on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the recently released and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been a couple for about a year, which we discover early on has marked the time Liz has fled past relationships. Still, she appears optimistic about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their early scenes together are not as filled with warning signs or as oddly idyllic as other current characters in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat mumbled way of speaking as he describes some oddities about his family-owned cabin in the woods (like the reality that he has a creepy cousin who lives close by). But their social discomfort are complementary. They appear comfortable together.

Osgood Perkins brings in discord through his camera work, rather than micro-aggressions or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely outright concealed, but they're often partially obscured, shown from odd perspectives, or composed in shots with a unsettling amount of headroom. This establishes a trend of confusion that continues as Liz thinks she perceives faint sounds through the house's air ducts. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious bath, there's an intensely unforgettable overlay of the adjacent river flowing all around her, as if she's about to go beyond space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a friend she calls when she's by herself at the cabin. Her friend asks if she did psychedelics; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed status as the female in Malcolm's world – appears like it could go in multiple paths, its horror elements mixed together in a dreamlike mix. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a terrible experience? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a productive streak for the last year and a half with another movie scheduled next year, complicates efforts to discern, both within the story (so many of the creepiest early moments are instances just blurry or in the corner of the eye) and extra-textually; his last two films were the tonally distinct murderer freakout Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This eclecticism, paired with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse marketing, could cause the latest release feel to some like a shell game designed to embellish what is, fundamentally, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Perhaps it's exactly that. But part of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the way it prioritizes its visceral effect on an viewer above a wish to twist that plot into a modern love allegory. As smart as so many contemporary horror movies are, they often script toward theme rather than shooting for instant impact. Consequently, some are lacking innovative visuals, unexpected juxtapositions or a sense of genuine, strange mystery. Keeper has all of this, and Perkins understands just how far to push those elements without permitting the movie to turn into abstract mystical excess.

The director also appears to recognize what a strong grounding element he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the usual masterful demo reel of a female on the brink of oblivion. Liz becomes alarmed by the weird things that take place around her, and the character is scripted and acted with a particular straightforwardness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who inexplicably sidesteps inquiring what the hell is happening.) However Maslany delivers a additional layer to her performance in her unprotected moments: a skeptical glance of her eyes in one way or another, the fragility of her more courteous smiles, the shorthand of both her closeness and speed to irritation with her off-screen pal on the call. Though no particular skeleton key to her painful history is revealed, the character still feels complete.

The same applies of the film as a complete piece, too. It's not as rich as Sinners or as narratively ambitious as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for innovative horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its tight confines feel satisfying, appropriate and improbable to spawn a sequel. That tidiness drives home some of its themes in a manner that the more overt moralizing of other romantic nightmare tales don't always achieve: perhaps it requires a mythical horror for the messy affair of relationships to remain so perfectly contained.

• The film arrives in cinemas on November 14th.