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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. From manipulated meet-cutes (New; Partner) to long-term codependence (Together) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's clear that romantic relationships are primarily blood-stained hell, and a couple venturing to a secluded location together signifies a fresh tier of terror.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uneasy on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the new and highly secretive horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for about a year, which we learn quickly has marked the period Liz has fled past relationships. Still, she appears hopeful about this one. She believes she understands Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are not as filled with warning signs nor as oddly perfect as other recent figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat mumbled way of speaking as he explains some oddities about his family-owned forest retreat (like the reality that he has a creepy cousin who lives close by). But their awkwardness levels are well-matched. They appear comfortable together.

Osgood Perkins introduces discord through his shot choices, rather than subtle hostilities or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely completely concealed, but they're frequently partially obscured, shown from strange perspectives, or composed in shots with a unsettling amount of empty space. This creates a trend of disorientation that continues as Liz thinks she hears faint noises through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious tub, there's an deeply unforgettable superimposition of the nearby stream rushing all around her, like she's about to transcend reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a friend she phones when she's by herself at the lodge. Her acquaintance asks if she did mushrooms; Liz doesn't answer directly.

For a while, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed role as the female in Malcolm's world – seems like it could go in multiple paths, its frightening components blended in a surreal jumble. Is it a ghost story, a forest killer movie, or just a really bad trip? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a productive streak for the last year and a half with an additional film scheduled next year, makes it difficult to discern, both within the story (so many of the creepiest early moments are instances just blurry or in the corner of the vision) and extra-textually; his last two films were the stylistically different serial-killer freakout Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish scary humor The Monkey. This diversity, combined with Keeper's elusive and secretive marketing, could make the new film feel to some like a shell game intended to dress up what is, fundamentally, a fairly straightforward horror story.

Perhaps it's that. But one aspect of what makes Perkins' film so invigorating is the manner it prioritizes its visceral effect on an audience over a wish to bend that story into a contemporary relationship parable. As clever as so many contemporary horror movies are, they often script for message instead of filming toward immediacy. Consequently, some are lacking innovative visuals, unexpected contrasts or a sense of genuine, uncanny mystery. Keeper has all of this, and Perkins knows just how far to push those elements without permitting the movie to turn into abstract mystical self-indulgence.

The director also appears to know what a strong grounding element he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the typical masterful demo reel of a female on the verge of doom. Liz becomes freaked out by the strange occurrences that happen around her, and the role is scripted and acted with a particular straightforwardness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who mysteriously avoids inquiring what the hell is happening.) Yet Maslany delivers a additional layer to her acting in her unprotected moments: a cynical glance of her eyes in one way or another, the tenuousness of her more polite smiles, the abbreviated of both her closeness and quickness to annoyance with her off-screen pal on the call. Though no specific master clue to her painful past awaits, the character still feels fully realized.

The same applies of the film as a whole, 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 finishes up, its tight confines feel satisfying, appropriate and unlikely to spawn a sequel. That neatness emphasizes some of its themes in a way that the more obvious moralizing of other romantic nightmare stories do not always manage: maybe it requires a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• Keeper arrives in cinemas on 14 November.