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Over the past few seasons, horror cinema has often explored toxic romance with the same fervor as a cursed dating app. Starting with engineered first encounters (New; Partner) to chronic emotional reliance (United) to the rare happy ending (Heart Eyes), it's clear that love affairs are mostly blood-stained hell, and a couple traveling to a secluded spot together represents a fresh tier of fright.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uneasy on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the recently released and highly secretive scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we discover quickly has signified the period Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she seems optimistic about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are not as filled with warning signs or as suspiciously perfect as other recent figures in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a cautious, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat mumbled accent as he explains some peculiarities about his ancestral cabin in the woods (like the fact that he has a creepy relative who lives close by). But their social discomfort are well-matched. They appear at ease together.

The director brings in tension through his shot choices, rather than micro-aggressions or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely outright hidden, but they're often partially blocked, viewed from strange angles, or framed in shots with a disconcerting amount of empty space. This establishes a pattern of disorientation that continues as Liz thinks she perceives faint noises through the house's vents. When she relaxes in the house's luxurious tub, there's an intensely memorable overlay of the nearby stream flowing all around her, as if she's about to transcend reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a companion she calls when she's left alone at the lodge. Her friend asks if she actually took mushrooms; Liz avoids responding directly.

For a while, Keeper – titled after Liz's assumed role as the female in Malcolm's world – appears like it could go in any number of directions, its horror elements mixed together in a surreal jumble. Is it a ghost story, a forest killer movie, or just a terrible trip? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a prolific run for the last year and a half with an additional film scheduled next year, complicates efforts to tell, both within the story (so many of the creepiest early moments are instances just blurry or in the periphery of the vision) and extra-textually; his last two films were the tonally distinct serial-killer thriller Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, paired with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse marketing, could cause the latest release feel to some like a deceptive trick intended 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 invigorating is the way it prioritizes its visceral effect on an viewer over a wish to twist that story into a modern relationship parable. As clever as so many current scary films are, they often script toward theme instead of filming for immediacy. As a result, some are lacking original imagery, unexpected juxtapositions or a sense of authentic, strange mystery. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins knows just how far to push those components without allowing the movie to turn into vague woo-woo self-indulgence.

He also seems to recognize what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to do the typical virtuoso demo reel of a female on the brink of doom. Liz becomes alarmed by the strange occurrences that take place around her, and the character is scripted and performed with a particular directness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who mysteriously avoids asking what the hell is happening.) However Maslany provides a additional layer to her acting in her unguarded times: a cynical flick of her gaze in one direction or another, the tenuousness of her more courteous grins, the shorthand of both her closeness and quickness to annoyance with her off-screen pal on the call. Though no particular master clue to her painful past awaits, the character still feels fully realized.

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 concludes, its compact structure seem gratifying, correct and improbable to generate a sequel. That neatness emphasizes some of its themes in a way that the more overt messaging of other romantic nightmare tales do not always achieve: maybe it requires a mythical horror for the messy affair of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• The film debuts in cinemas on November 14th.