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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has often explored unhealthy relationships with the same fervor as a doomed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (Fresh; Companion) to long-term codependence (Together) to the rare happy ending (Love-Struck), it's evident that romantic relationships are primarily gory nightmares, and a pair traveling to a isolated spot together represents a fresh level of terror.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uneasy on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the new and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we learn quickly has marked the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she seems optimistic about this one. She thinks she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their early scenes together are not as dotted with warning signs or as suspiciously idyllic as other current characters in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a wary, dry sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat mumbled way of speaking as he explains some oddities about his family-owned cabin in the woods (like the fact that he has a creepy cousin who lives nearby). 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 faces are seldom outright hidden, but they're often somewhat obscured, shown from odd angles, or composed in scenes with a unsettling amount of empty space. This establishes a trend of confusion that persists as Liz believes she perceives faint sounds through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's posh bath, there's an deeply memorable overlay of the nearby stream rushing all around her, like she's about to go beyond reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she phones when she's by herself at the lodge. Her friend inquires if she actually took psychedelics; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's assumed status as the female in Malcolm's life – appears like it could head in multiple paths, its frightening components blended in a surreal mix. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a really bad experience? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a prolific run for the past 18 months with another movie due out next year, makes it difficult to discern, both within the story (so many of the creepiest initial scenes are moments just out of focus or in the corner of the eye) and outside the narrative; his last two films were the tonally distinct murderer thriller Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish scary humor The Monkey. This eclecticism, paired with Keeper's mysterious and secretive ad campaign, could make the latest release feel to some like a deceptive trick intended to embellish what is, fundamentally, a fairly straightforward scary narrative.

Perhaps it's exactly that. But one aspect of what makes Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it emphasizes its visceral effect on an audience above a wish to twist that story into a contemporary relationship parable. As smart as so many current scary films are, they often write toward theme rather than shooting for instant impact. As a result, some are starved for innovative visuals, unexpected juxtapositions or a feeling of genuine, strange enigma. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins understands just how far to advance those elements without allowing the movie to become vague mystical self-indulgence.

He also seems to know what a strong grounding element he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the usual masterful showcase of a woman on the verge of doom. Liz does get freaked out by the strange occurrences that happen around her, and the character is scripted and performed with a particular directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously avoids inquiring what the hell is happening.) Yet Maslany delivers a additional layer to her performance in her unguarded times: a cynical glance of her gaze in one direction or another, the tenuousness of her more polite smiles, the abbreviated of both her closeness and speed to irritation with her unseen friend on the phone. Though no specific skeleton key to her painful past is revealed, the figure still feels complete.

The same applies of the film as a complete piece, too. It's not as complex 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 seem gratifying, correct and unlikely to generate a follow-up. That neatness drives home some of its themes in a way that the more overt messaging of other dating-hell stories do not always achieve: maybe it takes a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to remain so perfectly contained.

• Keeper debuts in theaters on November 14th.