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In recent years, scary movies has frequently delved into unhealthy relationships with the similar intensity as a doomed dating app. From engineered first encounters (Fresh; Partner) to chronic emotional reliance (United) to the occasional success story (Love-Struck), it's clear that romantic relationships are mostly gory nightmares, and a pair venturing to a isolated location together signifies a fresh tier of terror.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uneasy on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the recently released and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been a couple for approximately twelve months, which we learn early on has signified the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she appears optimistic about this one. She thinks she understands Malcolm pretty well, and their early scenes together are not as filled with warning signs nor as suspiciously idyllic as other recent characters in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a wary, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat mumbled way of speaking as he describes some oddities about his family-owned forest retreat (like the reality that he has a creepy relative who lives close by). But their social discomfort are well-matched. They seem at ease together.

Osgood Perkins brings in tension through his camera work, rather than subtle hostilities or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom outright concealed, but they're frequently partially blocked, viewed from strange perspectives, or composed in shots with a unsettling amount of headroom. This creates a pattern of confusion that continues as Liz believes she hears soft noises through the house's air ducts. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious tub, there's an intensely unforgettable overlay of the nearby stream rushing all around her, as if she's about to go beyond reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a friend she calls when she's by herself at the lodge. Her acquaintance inquires if she did psychedelics; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

For a while, Keeper – named for Liz's assumed role as the woman in Malcolm's life – appears like it could go in any number of paths, its frightening components mixed together in a surreal jumble. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a terrible experience? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a prolific run for the past 18 months with an additional film scheduled next year, makes it difficult 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 fate-based scary humor The Monkey. This eclecticism, combined with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse marketing, could make the latest release feel to some like a deceptive trick designed to embellish what is, fundamentally, a pretty simple horror story.

Maybe it is exactly that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the way 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 for theme rather than filming toward instant impact. As a result, some are starved for original imagery, surprising contrasts or a feeling of genuine, uncanny mystery. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins understands just how much to push those elements without permitting the movie to turn into vague woo-woo self-indulgence.

He also seems to recognize what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to do the typical masterful demo reel of a woman on the brink of doom. Liz does get alarmed by the weird things that take place around her, and the role is written and performed with a particular directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously sidesteps inquiring what the heck is going on.) However Maslany provides a additional layer to her performance in her unguarded moments: a cynical glance of her eyes in one way or another, the fragility of her more polite smiles, the shorthand of both her familiarity and speed to annoyance with her unseen friend on the call. Though no particular skeleton key to her traumatic history awaits, the character still feels fully realized.

The same applies of the movie as a whole, too. It's not as complex as Sinners nor as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for original horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its tight confines feel gratifying, appropriate and improbable to spawn 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 manage: maybe it requires a fable-like horror for the complicated business of relationships to stay so neatly kept.

• The film arrives in theaters on November 14th.