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Over the past few seasons, horror cinema has often explored toxic romance with the similar fervor as a cursed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (Fresh; Partner) to long-term codependence (United) to the occasional success story (Love-Struck), it's clear that romantic relationships are primarily blood-stained hell, and a couple venturing to a secluded location together signifies a new 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 new and much-concealed scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been a couple for approximately twelve months, which we discover quickly has marked the time Liz has fled past relationships. Still, she appears optimistic about this one. She believes she understands Malcolm pretty well, and their early scenes together are not as filled with red flags or as oddly idyllic as other recent figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a wary, deadpan comic timing, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together way of speaking as he describes some oddities about his ancestral forest retreat (like the reality that he has a eerie relative who lives close by). But their social discomfort are complementary. They appear comfortable together.

Osgood Perkins introduces tension through his shot choices, instead of subtle hostilities or past events.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are rarely completely concealed, but they're often somewhat obscured, viewed from strange perspectives, or framed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of headroom. This creates a pattern of disorientation that persists as Liz thinks she perceives faint sounds through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious tub, there's an intensely unforgettable superimposition of the nearby river rushing all around her, like she's about to transcend space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a companion she phones when she's by herself at the lodge. Her friend inquires if she actually took mushrooms; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed status as the female in Malcolm's world – appears like it could go in any number of paths, its horror elements blended in a surreal jumble. Is it a ghost story, a forest killer movie, or just a really bad trip? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a productive streak for the last year and a half with an additional film due out next year, makes it difficult to tell, both in-movie (so many of the most unsettling early moments are moments just out of focus or in the periphery of the eye) and extra-textually; his last two films were the stylistically different serial-killer thriller Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish scary humor The Monkey. This eclecticism, paired with Keeper's elusive and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could make the new film seem to some like a deceptive trick designed to dress up what is, at its core, a fairly straightforward scary narrative.

Perhaps it's that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so invigorating is the manner it emphasizes its physical impact on an viewer over a desire to twist that story into a modern relationship parable. As smart as so many current scary films are, they frequently script for theme rather than shooting for instant impact. As a result, some are starved for original imagery, unexpected contrasts or a feeling of genuine, uncanny mystery. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins understands just how far to push those elements without allowing the movie to become vague mystical excess.

He also seems to recognize what a strong grounding element he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to perform the usual virtuoso demo reel of a woman on the verge of doom. Liz does get alarmed by the weird occurrences that happen around her, and the character is scripted and acted with a certain directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously sidesteps inquiring what the hell is going on.) Yet Maslany provides a additional layer to her acting in her unguarded times: a cynical glance of her eyes in one direction or another, the fragility of her more courteous grins, the shorthand of both her closeness and speed to annoyance with her unseen pal on the phone. Though no specific skeleton key to her traumatic history is revealed, the character still seems complete.

The same applies of the movie as a complete piece, too. It's not as complex as Sinners or as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for innovative horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its tight confines feel satisfying, appropriate and unlikely to spawn a sequel. That neatness drives home some of its themes in a way that the more overt moralizing of other romantic nightmare tales do not always manage: maybe it requires a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to stay so perfectly contained.

• The film arrives in cinemas on November 14th.