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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has frequently delved into toxic romance with the same fervor as a doomed dating app. From engineered first encounters (New; Companion) to chronic emotional reliance (Together) to the rare happy ending (Love-Struck), it's clear that romantic relationships are primarily blood-stained hell, and a couple venturing to a isolated spot together signifies a new level of fright.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uncomfortable on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the new and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we learn quickly has signified the period 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 warning signs or as oddly perfect as other recent figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, dry sense of humor, and Malcolm has a slightly mumbled accent as he explains some peculiarities about his family-owned cabin in the woods (like the reality that he has a creepy cousin who lives close by). But their social discomfort are well-matched. They appear comfortable together.

Osgood Perkins introduces discord through his shot choices, instead of subtle hostilities or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom outright hidden, but they're often partially blocked, shown from strange angles, or composed in scenes with a unsettling amount of empty space. This creates a trend of disorientation that continues as Liz believes she hears soft noises through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious tub, there's an deeply unforgettable overlay of the nearby river 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 cabin. Her friend inquires if she did mushrooms; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

For a while, Keeper – titled after Liz's supposed status as the female in Malcolm's world – appears like it could head in multiple directions, its horror elements blended in a dreamlike mix. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a really bad experience? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a productive streak for the last year and a half with another movie scheduled next year, makes it difficult to discern, both in-movie (so many of the creepiest early moments are moments just out of focus or in the periphery of the vision) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the stylistically different serial-killer freakout Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This eclecticism, paired with Keeper's mysterious and secretive marketing, could make the latest release feel to some like a deceptive trick designed to embellish what is, at its core, a fairly straightforward horror story.

Perhaps it's exactly that. But one aspect of what makes Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it emphasizes its visceral effect on an viewer above a desire to twist that story into a contemporary relationship parable. As smart as so many current scary films are, they often write toward message rather than filming toward instant impact. As a result, some are starved for original imagery, surprising juxtapositions or a sense of authentic, uncanny enigma. Keeper has each of these, and Perkins understands just how much to advance those elements without allowing the movie to become abstract mystical excess.

He also seems to recognize what a powerful stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the usual masterful demo reel of a female on the brink of doom. Liz does get alarmed by the weird occurrences that take place around her, and the role is scripted and performed with a particular straightforwardness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who inexplicably sidesteps asking what the heck is going on.) However Maslany delivers a additional layer to her acting in her unprotected moments: a cynical glance of her eyes in one direction or another, the fragility of her more courteous grins, the abbreviated of both her familiarity and quickness to irritation with her unseen friend on the phone. Though no specific skeleton key to her painful past is revealed, the character still feels fully realized.

The same applies of the film as a complete piece, too. It's not as complex as Sinners nor as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's standard-bearers for innovative horror. But when Keeper concludes, its compact structure feel satisfying, appropriate and unlikely to generate a sequel. That neatness drives home some of its ideas in a manner that the more overt messaging of other romantic nightmare stories don't always achieve: perhaps it takes a mythical horror for the messy affair of relationships to stay so perfectly contained.

• Keeper debuts in theaters on November 14th.