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In recent years, horror cinema has often delved into toxic romance with the same fervor as a doomed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (New; Partner) to long-term codependence (Together) to the rare happy ending (Love-Struck), it's clear that love affairs are mostly gory nightmares, and a couple traveling to a isolated spot together signifies a fresh level of terror.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uncomfortable on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the recently released and much-concealed scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been a couple for about a year, which we discover early on has marked the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Nevertheless, she appears optimistic about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their early scenes together are neither as filled with red flags or as oddly perfect as other recent characters in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a wary, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a slightly slurred-together accent as he explains some peculiarities about his family-owned cabin in the woods (like the reality that he has a creepy relative who lives close by). But their social discomfort are complementary. They seem at ease together.

Osgood Perkins brings in discord through his camera work, instead of micro-aggressions or past events.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely outright concealed, but they're often partially blocked, shown from odd angles, or framed in scenes with a unsettling amount of empty space. This establishes a trend of confusion that continues as Liz believes she hears faint noises through the house's air ducts. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious tub, there's an intensely memorable overlay of the nearby river rushing all around her, like she's about to transcend reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a companion she phones when she's left alone at the cabin. Her friend inquires if she did psychedelics; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed status as the female in Malcolm's life – seems like it could head in multiple paths, its horror elements blended in a surreal jumble. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a terrible trip? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a productive streak for the past 18 months with another movie scheduled next year, makes it difficult to discern, both within the story (so many of the creepiest early moments are moments just blurry or in the corner of the vision) and outside the narrative; his last two films were the stylistically different serial-killer thriller Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This eclecticism, combined with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could make the new film feel to some like a deceptive trick designed to dress up what is, fundamentally, a fairly straightforward horror story.

Maybe it is exactly that. But part of what makes Perkins' film so refreshing is the way it emphasizes its physical impact on an viewer over a wish to bend that plot into a modern love allegory. As smart as so many contemporary horror movies are, they often script toward message rather than shooting toward instant impact. Consequently, some are lacking innovative visuals, unexpected juxtapositions or a feeling of genuine, strange enigma. Keeper has each of these, and Perkins knows just how far to push those elements without allowing the movie to turn into abstract mystical excess.

He also seems to know 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 alarmed by the weird occurrences that take place around her, and the role is written and acted with a particular straightforwardness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who mysteriously avoids asking what the hell is going on.) Yet Maslany delivers a additional layer to her acting in her unprotected moments: a cynical glance of her eyes in one way or another, the tenuousness of her more courteous smiles, the shorthand of both her closeness and quickness to annoyance with her unseen friend on the call. Though no specific skeleton key to her traumatic history is revealed, the character still seems fully realized.

The same applies of the film as a complete piece, too. It's not as complex as Sinners nor as narratively ambitious as Weapons, two of 2025's standard-bearers for innovative horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its compact structure seem satisfying, appropriate and unlikely to spawn a follow-up. That neatness emphasizes some of its ideas in a way that the more obvious messaging of other romantic nightmare tales do not always achieve: maybe it requires a fable-like horror for the messy affair of relationships to stay so neatly kept.

• Keeper debuts in cinemas on November 14th.