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Over the past few seasons, horror cinema has often explored toxic romance with the similar intensity as a doomed dating app. From engineered first encounters (Fresh; Companion) to chronic emotional reliance (Together) to the rare happy ending (Love-Struck), it's evident that love affairs are mostly blood-stained hell, and a couple venturing to a secluded location together represents a fresh tier of fright.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uncomfortable on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the new and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we discover quickly has marked the period Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she appears optimistic about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their initial moments together are not as dotted with warning signs or as oddly idyllic as other recent figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, deadpan comic timing, and Malcolm has a slightly mumbled way of speaking as he describes some peculiarities about his family-owned forest retreat (like the fact that he has a creepy relative who lives nearby). But their social discomfort are complementary. They seem comfortable together.

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

Liz and Malcolm's faces are rarely completely concealed, but they're frequently somewhat obscured, viewed from strange perspectives, or framed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of headroom. This creates a trend of disorientation that continues as Liz thinks she hears faint sounds through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's posh tub, there's an deeply unforgettable overlay of the nearby stream flowing all around her, as if she's about to transcend reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a friend she phones when she's by herself at the cabin. Her friend asks if she did mushrooms; Liz doesn't answer straightforwardly.

For a while, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed role as the female in Malcolm's life – seems like it could head in any number of directions, its horror elements mixed together in a dreamlike mix. Is it a supernatural tale, a forest killer movie, or just a terrible trip? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a prolific streak for the past 18 months with another movie scheduled next year, complicates efforts to tell, both within the story (so many of the creepiest initial scenes are moments just out of focus or in the corner of the vision) and extra-textually; his last two films were the tonally distinct serial-killer freakout Longlegs and the fate-based scary humor The Monkey. This eclecticism, paired with Keeper's elusive and secretive ad campaign, could make the latest release feel to some like a shell game intended to dress up what is, fundamentally, a pretty simple horror story.

Maybe it is exactly that. But one aspect of what makes Perkins' film so invigorating is the manner it emphasizes its visceral effect on an audience over a wish to bend that story into a modern relationship parable. As clever as so many contemporary horror movies are, they often write toward message instead of filming for immediacy. As a result, some are starved for original imagery, unexpected contrasts or a feeling of authentic, strange enigma. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins understands just how much to advance those elements without permitting the movie to become 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 demo reel of a female on the verge of doom. Liz becomes freaked out by the weird occurrences that happen around her, and the role is written and acted with a certain straightforwardness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who inexplicably avoids inquiring what the heck is going on.) Yet Maslany provides a additional layer to her acting in her unprotected moments: a skeptical glance of her eyes in one way or another, the fragility of her more courteous grins, the abbreviated of both her closeness and speed to annoyance with her unseen friend on the phone. Though no specific skeleton key to her traumatic history awaits, the figure still feels complete.

The same applies of the film 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 finishes up, its tight confines seem gratifying, appropriate and unlikely to spawn a sequel. That tidiness drives home some of its themes in a way that the more obvious messaging of other dating-hell stories do not always achieve: perhaps it requires a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to stay so perfectly contained.

• The film arrives in theaters on November 14th.