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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has frequently delved into unhealthy relationships with the similar intensity as a cursed dating app. Starting with engineered first encounters (Fresh; Companion) to long-term codependence (United) to the rare happy ending (Heart Eyes), it's evident that romantic relationships are mostly gory nightmares, and a couple venturing to a isolated spot together represents a new tier of terror.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uncomfortable on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the new and highly secretive scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for about a year, which we learn early on has signified the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she seems hopeful about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their early scenes together are not as filled with red flags nor as oddly perfect as other current characters in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a cautious, dry sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat mumbled accent as he explains some peculiarities about his family-owned cabin in the woods (like the reality that he has a eerie cousin who lives nearby). But their social discomfort are complementary. They seem comfortable together.

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

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom outright concealed, but they're frequently somewhat obscured, shown from strange perspectives, or composed in shots with a disconcerting amount of headroom. This establishes a trend of confusion that persists as Liz thinks she hears faint sounds through the house's air ducts. When she relaxes in the house's posh tub, there's an deeply unforgettable superimposition of the nearby stream rushing all around her, as if she's about to transcend space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she phones when she's left alone at the lodge. Her friend inquires if she actually took mushrooms; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – titled after Liz's assumed role as the female in Malcolm's world – seems like it could go in multiple directions, its frightening components blended in a dreamlike jumble. Is it a supernatural tale, a forest killer movie, or just a really bad experience? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a prolific run for the last year and a half with another movie scheduled next year, complicates efforts to tell, both within the story (so many of the creepiest early moments are instances just blurry or in the periphery 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 diversity, combined with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse marketing, could make the new film feel to some like a deceptive trick designed to embellish what is, fundamentally, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Maybe it is exactly that. But part of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it prioritizes its physical impact on an audience above a desire to twist that plot into a modern relationship parable. As clever as so many current horror movies are, they often script toward message rather than filming toward instant impact. As a result, some are lacking innovative visuals, surprising contrasts or a feeling of authentic, uncanny mystery. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins understands just how far 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 isn't called upon to perform the typical masterful demo reel of a female on the verge of oblivion. Liz does get freaked out by the weird occurrences 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 inexplicably sidesteps inquiring what the hell is going on.) Yet Maslany provides a additional layer to her acting in her unguarded moments: a skeptical glance of her gaze in one way or another, the fragility of her more polite grins, the abbreviated of both her closeness and speed to irritation with her unseen pal on the call. Though no specific skeleton key to her traumatic history is revealed, the figure still feels fully realized.

The same applies 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 standard-bearers for original horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its compact structure seem gratifying, appropriate and unlikely to generate a follow-up. That tidiness emphasizes some of its themes in a way that the more obvious messaging of other dating-hell stories don't always achieve: maybe it takes a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to remain so perfectly contained.

• Keeper arrives in theaters on November 14th.