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Over the past few seasons, horror cinema has frequently explored toxic romance with the similar fervor as a doomed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (Fresh; Partner) to chronic emotional reliance (United) to the rare happy ending (Love-Struck), it's evident that romantic relationships are primarily gory nightmares, and a couple traveling to a isolated location together signifies a new level of terror.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uneasy on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the new and much-concealed scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we discover early on has marked the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Nevertheless, she seems hopeful about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their initial moments together are neither as dotted with warning signs nor as suspiciously perfect as other recent figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a wary, dry sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together accent as he describes some peculiarities 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 well-matched. They appear at ease together.

Osgood Perkins introduces tension through his camera work, rather than subtle hostilities or past events.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely outright hidden, but they're frequently partially blocked, viewed from odd angles, or framed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of headroom. This establishes a trend of disorientation that persists as Liz thinks she perceives soft noises through the house's vents. When she relaxes in the house's luxurious tub, there's an deeply unforgettable overlay of the nearby stream rushing all around her, as if she's about to transcend space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a friend she phones when she's by herself at the lodge. Her acquaintance inquires if she actually took mushrooms; Liz doesn't answer directly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed status as the female in Malcolm's life – seems like it could head in any number of directions, its horror elements mixed together in a dreamlike mix. Is it a ghost story, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a really bad trip? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a productive streak for the last year and a half with an additional film due out next year, complicates efforts to discern, both within the story (so many of the creepiest early moments are instances just out of focus or in the periphery of the vision) and outside the narrative; his previous movies were the tonally distinct serial-killer thriller Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish scary humor The Monkey. This eclecticism, paired with Keeper's elusive and secretive ad campaign, could cause the new film feel to some like a deceptive trick intended to dress up what is, at its core, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Maybe it is that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so invigorating is the manner it emphasizes its visceral effect on an viewer over a wish to bend that plot into a contemporary love allegory. As clever as so many current scary films are, they often write for theme rather than shooting toward instant impact. As a result, some are starved for original imagery, surprising contrasts or a feeling of authentic, strange enigma. Keeper has each of these, and Perkins knows just how far to push those elements without permitting the movie to turn into abstract mystical excess.

The director also appears to know what a powerful stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the typical virtuoso demo reel of a female on the brink of doom. Liz does get freaked out by the strange things that happen around her, and the character is written and acted with a certain straightforwardness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously avoids inquiring what the hell is going on.) Yet Maslany provides a additional layer to her acting in her unprotected moments: a cynical flick of her gaze in one direction or another, the fragility of her more courteous smiles, the abbreviated of both her familiarity and quickness to annoyance with her off-screen pal on the call. Though no specific skeleton key to her traumatic past awaits, the figure still seems complete.

That's true of the film as a complete piece, too. It's not as rich as Sinners nor as narratively ambitious as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for innovative horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its compact structure feel gratifying, correct and unlikely to generate a sequel. That neatness emphasizes some of its themes in a manner that the more overt messaging of other romantic nightmare tales don't always achieve: maybe it requires a fable-like horror for the complicated business of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• Keeper arrives in cinemas on November 14th.