Keeper Film Analysis – Romance Descends into Hell in Powerfully Eerie Horror

Over the past few seasons, scary movies has frequently delved into toxic romance with the same intensity as a cursed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (New; Partner) to long-term codependence (Together) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's evident that romantic relationships are primarily blood-stained hell, and a pair venturing to a secluded location together represents a new tier of fright.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uneasy on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the new and much-concealed scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for about a year, which we learn quickly has signified the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Nevertheless, she appears optimistic about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are not as dotted with red flags or as suspiciously perfect as other recent characters in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a wary, deadpan comic timing, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together way of speaking as he explains some oddities about his ancestral cabin in the woods (like the reality that he has a creepy cousin who lives close by). But their awkwardness levels are well-matched. They seem comfortable together.

Osgood Perkins brings in discord through his camera work, instead of subtle hostilities or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom completely concealed, but they're often partially obscured, viewed from odd perspectives, or composed in shots with a unsettling amount of empty space. This creates a trend of disorientation that persists as Liz thinks she hears soft sounds through the house's air ducts. When she relaxes in the house's posh tub, there's an deeply memorable superimposition of the nearby stream rushing all around her, like she's about to transcend space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a friend she phones when she's by herself at the lodge. Her acquaintance inquires if she actually took psychedelics; Liz avoids responding directly.

For a while, Keeper – titled after Liz's assumed role as the female in Malcolm's life – appears like it could head in multiple paths, its frightening components blended in a dreamlike jumble. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a terrible experience? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a productive run for the past 18 months with an additional film scheduled next year, makes it difficult to discern, both within the story (so many of the most unsettling early moments are instances just out of focus or in the corner of the vision) and outside the narrative; his last two films were the tonally distinct murderer freakout Longlegs and the fate-based horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, combined with Keeper's elusive and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could cause the new film feel to some like a shell game intended to embellish what is, at its core, a pretty simple horror story.

Maybe it is that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the way it emphasizes its physical impact on an viewer over a desire to bend that story into a modern love allegory. As smart as so many current horror movies are, they frequently write for message instead of filming for immediacy. As a result, some are lacking innovative visuals, unexpected juxtapositions or a feeling of genuine, uncanny mystery. Keeper possesses each of these, and Perkins knows just how far to push those components without allowing the movie to turn into vague woo-woo self-indulgence.

The director also appears to recognize what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to perform the usual virtuoso showcase of a woman on the brink of oblivion. Liz becomes freaked out by the weird things that happen around her, and the character is written and performed with a particular directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who inexplicably avoids asking what the hell is going on.) Yet Maslany provides a second level to her performance in her unprotected moments: a cynical glance of her gaze in one direction or another, the tenuousness of her more polite grins, the abbreviated of both her familiarity and speed to irritation with her off-screen pal on the call. Though no specific master clue to her traumatic history awaits, the character still seems fully realized.

That's true of the movie as a whole, too. It's not as complex as Sinners or as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for original horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its compact structure feel satisfying, correct and improbable to generate a sequel. That tidiness drives home some of its ideas in a manner that the more overt messaging of other romantic nightmare stories don't always manage: maybe it takes a mythical horror for the complicated business of relationships to stay so perfectly contained.

• Keeper debuts in cinemas on 14 November.