Keeper Film Analysis – Romance Goes to the Underworld in Powerfully Spooky Horror

Over the past few seasons, horror cinema has often delved into unhealthy relationships with the similar intensity as a doomed dating app. From engineered first encounters (New; Partner) to long-term codependence (United) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's clear that romantic relationships are primarily blood-stained hell, and a pair venturing to a secluded spot together signifies a new level of fright.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uncomfortable on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the new and highly secretive scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been a couple for approximately twelve months, which we discover quickly has signified the time 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 neither as filled with red flags or as oddly idyllic as other current figures in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a cautious, dry comic timing, and Malcolm has a slightly mumbled accent as he explains some peculiarities about his family-owned forest retreat (like the fact that he has a eerie cousin who lives nearby). But their awkwardness levels are well-matched. They seem comfortable together.

The director brings in tension through his shot choices, instead of micro-aggressions or past events.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely outright concealed, but they're frequently partially obscured, shown from strange angles, or composed in shots with a unsettling amount of empty space. This establishes a pattern of confusion that continues as Liz thinks she perceives soft sounds through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's posh tub, there's an deeply unforgettable overlay of the adjacent river flowing all around her, as if she's about to transcend reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she calls when she's by herself at the cabin. Her friend asks if she did psychedelics; Liz doesn't answer straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's assumed role as the woman in Malcolm's life – seems like it could go in any number of directions, its frightening components mixed together in a surreal jumble. Is it a ghost story, 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 last year and a half with another movie scheduled next year, complicates efforts to discern, both within the story (so many of the creepiest early moments are instances just blurry or in the corner of the eye) and outside the narrative; his previous movies were the tonally distinct murderer freakout Longlegs and the fate-based horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, combined with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could make the latest release feel to some like a deceptive trick designed to dress up what is, at its core, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Perhaps it's exactly that. But one aspect of what makes Perkins' film so invigorating is the way it emphasizes its visceral effect on an viewer over a wish to bend that plot into a contemporary love allegory. As clever as so many current scary films are, they often write for theme instead of shooting for instant impact. Consequently, some are lacking original imagery, surprising juxtapositions or a feeling of genuine, strange enigma. Keeper has all of this, and Perkins understands just how far to advance those elements without allowing the movie to become abstract woo-woo self-indulgence.

The director also appears to know what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the typical masterful showcase of a woman on the brink of oblivion. 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 horror heroines who inexplicably avoids inquiring what the heck is going on.) Yet Maslany delivers a additional layer to her acting in her unprotected moments: a cynical glance of her gaze in one direction or another, the fragility of her more courteous grins, the abbreviated of both her familiarity and speed to annoyance with her off-screen friend on the phone. Though no specific skeleton key to her traumatic past 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 narratively ambitious as Weapons, two of 2025's standard-bearers for original horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its tight confines seem gratifying, correct and unlikely to spawn a sequel. That neatness emphasizes some of its themes in a way that the more overt messaging of other romantic nightmare stories do not always manage: perhaps it requires a fable-like horror for the messy affair of relationships to stay so perfectly contained.

• The film arrives in theaters on 14 November.