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In recent years, horror cinema has often explored unhealthy relationships with the similar fervor as a doomed dating app. Starting with manipulated meet-cutes (Fresh; Partner) to chronic emotional reliance (United) to the occasional success story (Love-Struck), it's clear that love affairs are mostly gory nightmares, and a pair traveling to a isolated spot together signifies a fresh level of fright.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uncomfortable on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the new and highly secretive scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we learn quickly has signified the time 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 filled with red flags or as oddly idyllic as other current figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a wary, dry comic timing, and Malcolm has a somewhat mumbled accent as he describes some oddities about his ancestral cabin in the woods (like the fact that he has a creepy cousin who lives nearby). But their awkwardness levels are well-matched. They appear comfortable together.

The director brings in discord through his shot choices, rather than micro-aggressions or past events.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom outright concealed, but they're frequently somewhat blocked, shown from odd perspectives, or framed in shots with a unsettling amount of headroom. This establishes a trend of confusion that persists as Liz believes she hears faint noises through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's posh tub, there's an deeply unforgettable overlay of the adjacent river flowing all around her, as if she's about to go beyond space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she calls when she's left alone at the cabin. Her friend asks if she actually took psychedelics; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – titled after Liz's supposed status as the woman in Malcolm's world – seems like it could go in multiple 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 trip? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a prolific streak for the past 18 months with an additional film due out next year, makes it difficult to tell, both within the story (so many of the most unsettling early moments are moments just out of focus or in the corner of the vision) and extra-textually; his last two films were the tonally distinct serial-killer thriller Longlegs and the fate-based horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, combined with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse marketing, could cause the latest release seem to some like a deceptive trick designed to dress up what is, at its core, 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 physical impact on an viewer over a wish to twist that story into a modern relationship parable. As smart as so many contemporary scary films are, they frequently write for message instead of shooting toward instant impact. As a result, some are starved for original imagery, surprising contrasts or a sense of genuine, strange enigma. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins understands just how far to advance those elements without allowing the movie to turn into vague mystical self-indulgence.

He also seems to recognize what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to perform the usual masterful showcase of a female on the brink of doom. Liz becomes freaked out by the weird occurrences that happen around her, and the role is written and performed with a certain straightforwardness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who inexplicably sidesteps asking what the heck is happening.) Yet Maslany delivers a second level to her performance in her unprotected times: a cynical flick of her eyes in one way or another, the fragility of her more polite grins, the abbreviated of both her closeness and speed to annoyance with her unseen pal on the phone. Though no particular master clue to her painful history awaits, the figure still seems complete.

The same applies of the film as a whole, too. It's not as complex as Sinners nor as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for innovative horror. But when Keeper concludes, its tight confines seem satisfying, correct and unlikely to spawn a sequel. That tidiness drives home some of its ideas in a way that the more obvious messaging of other romantic nightmare stories don't always achieve: perhaps it requires a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• Keeper debuts in cinemas on November 14th.