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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has often explored toxic romance with the similar fervor as a doomed dating app. Starting with manipulated meet-cutes (New; Partner) to long-term codependence (United) to the rare happy ending (Love-Struck), it's evident that love affairs are primarily blood-stained hell, and a pair traveling to a secluded location together represents a fresh tier 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 highly secretive 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. Nevertheless, she appears hopeful about this one. She thinks she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are neither as dotted with red flags or as suspiciously idyllic as other current figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a wary, dry sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together way of speaking as he describes some peculiarities about his ancestral forest retreat (like the reality that he has a creepy relative who lives close by). But their awkwardness levels are well-matched. They appear comfortable together.

The director brings in tension through his shot choices, rather than subtle hostilities or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom completely concealed, but they're often partially obscured, viewed from strange perspectives, or framed in shots with a unsettling amount of empty space. This creates a pattern of disorientation that persists 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 deeply unforgettable overlay of the nearby stream rushing all around her, like she's about to go beyond reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a friend she calls when she's by herself at the cabin. Her friend inquires if she did mushrooms; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – titled after Liz's supposed role as the woman in Malcolm's world – seems like it could head in multiple paths, its frightening components blended in a dreamlike mix. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a really bad experience? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a productive streak for the past 18 months with an additional film due out next year, makes it difficult to discern, both in-movie (so many of the most unsettling early moments are moments just blurry or in the corner of the vision) and outside the narrative; his previous movies were the tonally distinct serial-killer freakout Longlegs and the fate-based scary humor The Monkey. This eclecticism, paired with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse marketing, could make the latest release seem to some like a deceptive trick designed to dress up what is, at its core, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Maybe it is that. But part of what renders Perkins' film so invigorating is the manner it emphasizes its visceral effect on an audience over a wish to bend that plot into a modern relationship parable. As clever as so many contemporary scary films are, they often script for theme rather than filming toward instant impact. As a result, some are lacking innovative visuals, surprising contrasts or a feeling of genuine, uncanny enigma. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins knows just how much to push those components without allowing the movie to turn into vague woo-woo excess.

He also seems to recognize what a powerful stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to do the typical masterful demo reel of a woman on the verge of oblivion. Liz becomes freaked out by the weird occurrences that take place around her, and the role is scripted and acted with a particular directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously avoids asking what the heck is going on.) However Maslany delivers a second level to her performance in her unguarded moments: a cynical glance of her gaze in one way or another, the tenuousness of her more polite smiles, the abbreviated of both her closeness and quickness to annoyance with her unseen pal on the call. Though no specific master clue to her traumatic history awaits, the character still seems fully realized.

The same applies of the film as a complete piece, too. It's not as rich as Sinners nor as narratively ambitious as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for original horror. But when Keeper concludes, its tight confines feel satisfying, correct and improbable to spawn a sequel. That tidiness drives home some of its ideas in a manner that the more obvious messaging of other romantic nightmare tales don't always manage: maybe it takes a mythical horror for the complicated affair of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• The film debuts in cinemas on November 14th.