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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has often delved into toxic romance with the similar fervor as a doomed dating app. Starting with engineered first encounters (Fresh; Partner) to long-term codependence (Together) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's clear that romantic relationships are mostly gory nightmares, and a couple traveling to a isolated location together signifies a new tier of terror.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uneasy on her short vacation 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 learn quickly has signified the period Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she appears optimistic about this one. She thinks she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are not as dotted with red flags or as suspiciously perfect as other recent characters in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a cautious, deadpan comic timing, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together way of speaking as he explains some peculiarities about his ancestral forest retreat (like the fact that he has a eerie relative who lives close by). But their awkwardness levels are complementary. They appear comfortable together.

The director introduces discord through his shot choices, instead of subtle hostilities or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom completely concealed, but they're often somewhat blocked, shown from strange angles, or composed in shots with a disconcerting amount of empty space. This establishes a pattern of disorientation that continues as Liz believes she perceives faint noises through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's posh tub, there's an intensely memorable superimposition of the adjacent stream flowing all around her, as if she's about to transcend reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she calls when she's by herself at the lodge. Her friend inquires if she did psychedelics; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

For a while, Keeper – named for Liz's assumed status as the woman in Malcolm's life – appears like it could go in any number of directions, its horror elements mixed together in a surreal jumble. 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 prolific streak for the last year and a half with another movie due out next year, complicates efforts to tell, both within the story (so many of the creepiest early moments are instances just out of focus or in the corner of the vision) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the tonally distinct murderer freakout Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish scary humor The Monkey. This diversity, combined with Keeper's elusive and spoiler-averse marketing, could cause the latest release seem to some like a deceptive trick designed to embellish what is, fundamentally, a pretty simple horror story.

Maybe it is that. But part of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it prioritizes its physical impact on an audience over a wish to twist that plot into a modern love allegory. As clever as so many contemporary scary films are, they frequently write for message instead of shooting for immediacy. As a result, some are lacking innovative visuals, surprising contrasts or a sense of authentic, strange mystery. Keeper has each of these, and Perkins knows just how far to push those components without permitting the movie to turn into vague woo-woo self-indulgence.

The director also appears to know what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to perform the typical virtuoso demo reel of a female on the verge of oblivion. Liz does get freaked out by the weird things that take place around her, and the character is written and performed with a certain straightforwardness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously avoids inquiring what the heck is happening.) Yet Maslany provides a additional layer to her performance in her unguarded times: a skeptical glance of her eyes in one direction or another, the tenuousness of her more courteous grins, the shorthand of both her closeness and speed to irritation with her off-screen pal on the phone. Though no specific skeleton key to her painful history awaits, the character still feels complete.

The same applies of the film as a whole, too. It's not as complex as Sinners or as narratively ambitious as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for original horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its tight confines seem gratifying, correct and improbable to generate a sequel. That tidiness emphasizes some of its themes in a way that the more obvious moralizing of other romantic nightmare tales do not always achieve: perhaps it requires a fable-like horror for the messy business of relationships to stay so perfectly contained.

• Keeper arrives in cinemas on November 14th.