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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has often delved into toxic romance with the similar fervor as a doomed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (New; Companion) to long-term codependence (Together) to the rare happy ending (Heart Eyes), it's evident that love affairs are primarily blood-stained hell, and a couple traveling to a secluded spot together represents a fresh level of terror.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uncomfortable on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the recently released and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been a couple for approximately twelve months, which we learn quickly has marked the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Nevertheless, she seems optimistic about this one. She believes she understands Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their early scenes together are not as filled with red flags or as oddly perfect as other current figures in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a cautious, dry comic timing, and Malcolm has a somewhat mumbled accent as he explains some peculiarities about his ancestral cabin in the woods (like the reality that he has a eerie cousin who lives close by). But their awkwardness levels are well-matched. They seem at ease together.

The director introduces tension through his camera work, instead of subtle hostilities or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom completely concealed, but they're frequently somewhat obscured, viewed from strange angles, or composed in scenes with a unsettling amount of empty space. This creates a trend of disorientation that persists as Liz believes she hears faint noises through the house's air ducts. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious bath, there's an deeply unforgettable overlay of the nearby river flowing all around her, like she's about to go beyond reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she phones when she's by herself at the cabin. Her acquaintance inquires if she did mushrooms; Liz avoids responding directly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed status as the woman in Malcolm's world – appears like it could head in multiple directions, its horror elements mixed together in a surreal jumble. Is it a ghost story, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a really bad trip? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a prolific run 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 creepiest early moments are moments just out of focus or in the periphery of the vision) and extra-textually; his last two films were the tonally distinct serial-killer freakout Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, paired with Keeper's elusive and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could cause the latest release seem to some like a shell game designed to dress up what is, at its core, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Maybe it is that. But part of what makes Perkins' film so refreshing is the way it prioritizes its visceral effect on an audience above a desire to twist that story into a contemporary relationship parable. As clever as so many current horror movies are, they frequently write for theme rather than filming toward instant impact. As a result, some are starved for original imagery, surprising juxtapositions or a feeling of authentic, uncanny mystery. Keeper possesses each of these, and Perkins understands just how far to push those components without allowing the movie to become vague mystical excess.

The director also appears to know what a strong grounding element he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the usual masterful demo reel of a woman on the verge of doom. Liz does get alarmed by the weird things that happen around her, and the role is scripted and performed with a certain directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously avoids inquiring what the heck is happening.) Yet Maslany delivers a second level to her acting in her unprotected moments: a cynical flick of her eyes in one direction or another, the fragility of her more courteous smiles, the shorthand of both her closeness and speed to annoyance with her off-screen pal on the phone. Though no specific master clue to her painful history is revealed, the figure still feels fully realized.

The same applies of the movie as a complete piece, too. It's not as rich as Sinners nor as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for innovative horror. But when Keeper concludes, its compact structure feel satisfying, correct and improbable to spawn a follow-up. That neatness drives home some of its ideas in a manner that the more obvious moralizing of other romantic nightmare stories don't always manage: maybe it requires a fable-like horror for the complicated business of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• Keeper debuts in theaters on 14 November.