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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has often delved into unhealthy relationships with the similar intensity as a cursed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (Fresh; Partner) to long-term codependence (United) to the rare happy ending (Heart Eyes), it's clear that love affairs are mostly blood-stained hell, and a pair venturing to a secluded location 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 recently released and highly secretive scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we learn quickly has marked the period Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she seems optimistic about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their early scenes together are not as dotted with red flags or as oddly perfect as other current characters in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together accent as he describes some oddities about his family-owned forest retreat (like the fact that he has a eerie cousin who lives close by). But their social discomfort are well-matched. They seem at ease together.

The director brings in discord through his camera work, rather than subtle hostilities or past events.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely outright concealed, but they're often partially obscured, viewed from strange angles, or composed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of empty space. This establishes a trend of confusion that continues as Liz believes she perceives soft noises through the house's vents. When she relaxes in the house's luxurious tub, there's an deeply memorable superimposition of the adjacent stream rushing all around her, as if she's about to go beyond reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she calls when she's by herself at the lodge. Her acquaintance inquires if she did psychedelics; Liz doesn't answer straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed status as the woman in Malcolm's world – appears like it could go in multiple directions, its frightening components blended in a dreamlike mix. Is it a supernatural tale, a forest killer movie, or just a really bad trip? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a prolific run for the last year and a half with another movie due out next year, complicates efforts to discern, both within the story (so many of the most unsettling initial scenes are instances just out of focus or in the corner of the eye) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the stylistically different murderer freakout Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, combined with Keeper's elusive and secretive marketing, could make 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 invigorating is the manner it prioritizes its visceral effect on an viewer over a wish to bend that story into a modern relationship parable. As clever as so many contemporary horror movies are, they often script for theme rather than shooting toward instant impact. Consequently, some are lacking original imagery, unexpected juxtapositions or a sense of authentic, strange mystery. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins understands just how much to push those components without allowing the movie to become vague mystical self-indulgence.

The director also appears to recognize what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the usual masterful showcase of a female on the brink of oblivion. Liz becomes alarmed by the weird things that happen around her, and the character is scripted and performed with a certain directness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who mysteriously avoids asking what the heck is going on.) However Maslany delivers a second level to her performance in her unprotected moments: a cynical flick of her eyes in one way or another, the fragility of her more courteous smiles, the shorthand of both her closeness and quickness to irritation with her unseen pal on the call. Though no particular master clue to her traumatic history is revealed, the figure still feels complete.

The same applies of the film as a whole, too. It's not as rich 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, appropriate and improbable to spawn a sequel. That neatness emphasizes some of its ideas in a manner that the more obvious messaging of other dating-hell stories do not always manage: perhaps it takes a fable-like horror for the messy business of relationships to stay so neatly kept.

• Keeper debuts in cinemas on November 14th.