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In recent years, scary movies has often delved into toxic romance with the similar fervor as a cursed dating app. Starting with engineered first encounters (Fresh; Partner) to long-term codependence (Together) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's evident that love affairs are primarily blood-stained hell, and a couple venturing to a secluded location together signifies a fresh tier of terror.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uncomfortable on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on 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 period Liz has fled past relationships. Still, she seems hopeful about this one. She thinks she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are not as filled with warning signs nor as oddly perfect as other current characters in the doomed-couple 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 relative who lives close by). But their social discomfort are complementary. They appear comfortable together.

The director introduces discord through his shot choices, rather than micro-aggressions or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom completely concealed, but they're often somewhat blocked, shown from odd angles, or framed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of headroom. This establishes a trend of confusion that continues as Liz believes she perceives soft sounds through the house's air ducts. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious bath, there's an intensely unforgettable superimposition of the nearby stream flowing all around her, like she's about to go beyond reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a companion she calls when she's by herself at the lodge. Her acquaintance asks if she actually took mushrooms; Liz avoids responding directly.

For a while, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed role as the female in Malcolm's life – seems like it could go in multiple directions, its frightening components mixed together in a dreamlike jumble. Is it a ghost story, a forest killer movie, or just a terrible trip? 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, makes it difficult to tell, both within the story (so many of the creepiest initial scenes are moments just blurry or in the corner of the eye) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the tonally distinct serial-killer thriller Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, paired with Keeper's elusive and secretive marketing, could cause the new film feel to some like a deceptive trick intended to embellish what is, at its core, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Perhaps it's exactly that. But one aspect of what makes Perkins' film so refreshing is the way it prioritizes its visceral effect on an audience above a wish to bend that story into a contemporary relationship parable. As clever as so many current horror movies are, they frequently write for message rather than shooting for instant impact. As a result, some are starved for innovative visuals, unexpected contrasts or a sense of genuine, strange mystery. Keeper has each of these, and Perkins understands just how much to advance those components without permitting the movie to turn into abstract woo-woo self-indulgence.

The director also appears to recognize what a strong grounding element he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the typical virtuoso demo reel of a female on the verge of oblivion. Liz does get alarmed by the weird occurrences that take place around her, and the role is scripted and acted with a certain straightforwardness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously sidesteps asking what the hell is going on.) However Maslany provides a second level to her acting in her unprotected times: a skeptical flick of her gaze in one direction or another, the fragility of her more courteous smiles, the shorthand of both her familiarity and quickness to irritation with her off-screen friend on the call. Though no particular master clue to her traumatic past is revealed, the character still seems fully realized.

That's true of the movie as a complete piece, 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 compact structure seem satisfying, correct and unlikely to generate a follow-up. That neatness emphasizes some of its themes in a way that the more obvious messaging of other romantic nightmare stories don't always manage: maybe it takes a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to remain so perfectly contained.

• The film arrives in theaters on November 14th.