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In recent years, horror cinema has often delved into toxic romance with the similar fervor as a cursed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (New; Companion) to long-term codependence (Together) to the rare happy ending (Heart Eyes), it's evident that romantic relationships are mostly gory nightmares, and a pair venturing to a secluded spot together signifies a new level of fright.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uneasy on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the new and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we discover quickly has marked the period Liz has fled past relationships. Still, she seems optimistic about this one. She thinks she knows Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their early scenes together are neither as dotted with warning signs or as suspiciously idyllic as other recent characters in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a cautious, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together accent as he explains some oddities about his family-owned forest retreat (like the reality that he has a eerie cousin who lives close by). But their social discomfort are complementary. They seem at ease together.

Osgood Perkins introduces discord through his camera work, instead of micro-aggressions or past events.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are seldom outright concealed, but they're often somewhat obscured, shown from odd perspectives, or composed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of headroom. This establishes a pattern of confusion that persists as Liz believes she hears soft noises through the house's vents. When she relaxes in the house's posh bath, there's an intensely memorable overlay of the nearby stream rushing all around her, like she's about to go beyond space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she phones when she's left alone at the cabin. Her friend asks if she actually took psychedelics; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

For a while, Keeper – named for Liz's assumed role as the woman in Malcolm's world – seems like it could go in any number of directions, its horror elements mixed together in a dreamlike jumble. Is it a supernatural tale, a forest killer movie, or just a terrible experience? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a prolific run for the last year and a half with another movie due out next year, complicates efforts to discern, both within the story (so many of the most unsettling early moments are instances just out of focus or in the periphery of the eye) and outside the narrative; his last two films were the tonally distinct murderer thriller Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This eclecticism, combined with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could make the new film feel to some like a deceptive trick intended to embellish what is, at its core, a fairly straightforward scary narrative.

Maybe it is exactly that. But part of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it prioritizes its visceral effect on an viewer above a wish to bend that story into a modern love allegory. As clever as so many current horror movies are, they frequently write toward theme rather than filming for instant impact. As a result, some are starved for innovative visuals, unexpected contrasts or a feeling of authentic, strange mystery. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins knows just how far to advance those components without allowing the movie to become abstract woo-woo self-indulgence.

The director also appears to know what a strong grounding element he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to do the usual virtuoso demo reel of a woman on the verge of oblivion. Liz becomes 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 scary movie leads who mysteriously avoids inquiring what the hell is happening.) Yet Maslany delivers a second level to her performance in her unprotected times: a cynical flick of her gaze in one way or another, the fragility of her more polite grins, the abbreviated of both her closeness and quickness to irritation with her unseen friend on the call. Though no specific skeleton key to her traumatic past awaits, the figure still feels fully realized.

That's true of the film as a whole, too. It's not as rich as Sinners or as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for original horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its tight confines feel satisfying, correct and unlikely to generate a follow-up. That tidiness emphasizes some of its themes in a manner that the more obvious messaging of other dating-hell tales do not always manage: maybe it requires a mythical horror for the complicated business of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• Keeper arrives in theaters on November 14th.