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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has often delved into unhealthy relationships with the same intensity as a doomed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (New; Companion) to chronic emotional reliance (Together) to the rare happy ending (Heart Eyes), it's evident that love affairs are mostly gory nightmares, and a couple traveling to a secluded spot together represents a fresh tier 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 recently released and highly secretive horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we learn quickly has marked the time Liz has fled past relationships. Nevertheless, she appears optimistic about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their early scenes together are neither as dotted with warning signs or as oddly idyllic as other current characters in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, dry comic timing, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together accent as he describes some peculiarities about his ancestral forest retreat (like the reality that he has a creepy relative who lives nearby). But their awkwardness levels are well-matched. They appear comfortable together.

The director introduces tension through his camera work, instead of subtle hostilities or past events.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely completely hidden, but they're frequently partially blocked, viewed from odd perspectives, or framed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of empty space. This establishes a trend of confusion that continues as Liz believes she perceives faint noises through the house's air ducts. When she relaxes in the house's luxurious bath, there's an deeply memorable overlay 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 by herself at the cabin. Her acquaintance asks if she did psychedelics; Liz doesn't answer directly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed role as the female in Malcolm's life – seems like it could head in multiple paths, its horror elements mixed together in a dreamlike jumble. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a really bad trip? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a productive run for the past 18 months with another movie scheduled 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 periphery of the vision) and outside the narrative; his last two films were the tonally distinct murderer thriller Longlegs and the fate-based horror comedy The Monkey. This eclecticism, paired with Keeper's elusive and spoiler-averse marketing, could cause the latest release seem to some like a shell game intended to dress up what is, at its core, a fairly straightforward horror story.

Maybe it is that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so invigorating is the manner it emphasizes its physical impact on an audience above a wish to twist that story into a modern relationship parable. As smart as so many current horror movies are, they frequently write toward message rather than shooting toward instant impact. As a result, some are starved for innovative visuals, unexpected juxtapositions or a feeling of genuine, strange mystery. Keeper possesses each of these, and Perkins knows just how much to advance those components without allowing the movie to turn into vague woo-woo excess.

The director also appears to recognize what a strong grounding element he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to do the typical virtuoso showcase of a woman on the brink of oblivion. Liz does get freaked out by the weird things that happen around her, and the character is written and acted with a certain directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously avoids asking what the heck is happening.) However Maslany provides a additional layer to her performance in her unguarded moments: a skeptical flick of her eyes in one way or another, the tenuousness of her more courteous smiles, the shorthand of both her familiarity and speed to annoyance with her unseen pal on the phone. Though no specific master clue to her painful history awaits, the figure still feels complete.

The same applies of the movie as a complete piece, 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 generate a follow-up. That neatness drives home some of its themes in a way that the more overt moralizing of other dating-hell tales don't always achieve: maybe it requires a fable-like horror for the complicated affair of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• Keeper debuts in cinemas on 14 November.