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In recent years, horror cinema has frequently explored toxic romance with the similar fervor as a cursed dating app. Starting with engineered first encounters (New; Partner) to long-term codependence (United) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's clear that love affairs are primarily blood-stained hell, and a couple venturing to a secluded spot together signifies a fresh level of fright.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uncomfortable on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the new and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been a couple for about a year, which we learn quickly has signified the time Liz has fled past relationships. Nevertheless, she seems optimistic about this one. She believes she understands Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are not as dotted with red flags or as oddly idyllic as other recent characters in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a wary, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together way of speaking as he describes some peculiarities about his family-owned forest retreat (like the reality that he has a creepy cousin who lives nearby). But their social discomfort are well-matched. They appear at ease together.

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

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely outright hidden, but they're often partially obscured, shown from strange perspectives, or composed in shots with a disconcerting amount of empty space. This creates a pattern of confusion that continues as Liz believes she hears soft sounds through the house's air ducts. When she relaxes in the house's luxurious tub, there's an intensely unforgettable superimposition of the adjacent stream rushing all around her, like she's about to go beyond space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a friend she calls when she's by herself at the cabin. Her acquaintance inquires if she actually took psychedelics; Liz doesn't answer straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – titled after Liz's supposed status as the female in Malcolm's world – seems like it could head in multiple directions, its frightening components mixed together in a dreamlike jumble. Is it a supernatural tale, a forest killer movie, or just a really bad experience? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a prolific run for the past 18 months with another movie due out next year, makes it difficult to discern, both in-movie (so many of the most unsettling initial scenes are instances just blurry or in the corner of the vision) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the tonally distinct murderer thriller Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This eclecticism, combined with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse marketing, could make the new film feel to some like a shell game intended to dress up what is, at its core, a fairly straightforward horror story.

Perhaps it's that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it emphasizes its visceral effect on an viewer above a wish to bend that plot into a modern love allegory. As clever as so many current horror movies are, they often write for theme instead of filming for instant impact. As a result, some are starved for innovative visuals, unexpected juxtapositions or a feeling of genuine, strange mystery. Keeper has each of these, 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 know what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the usual virtuoso demo reel of a woman on the verge of doom. Liz becomes alarmed by the strange occurrences that happen around her, and the character is scripted and performed with a particular directness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who inexplicably sidesteps asking what the heck is happening.) Yet Maslany delivers a second level to her performance 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 closeness and speed to annoyance with her off-screen friend on the phone. Though no particular skeleton key to her painful past awaits, the figure 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 concludes, its compact structure feel gratifying, correct and unlikely to generate a sequel. That neatness emphasizes some of its themes in a manner that the more overt messaging of other romantic nightmare stories do not always achieve: maybe it takes a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• Keeper arrives in cinemas on November 14th.