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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has often delved into toxic romance with the same fervor as a doomed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (New; Partner) to long-term codependence (Together) to the occasional success story (Love-Struck), it's clear that romantic relationships are mostly gory nightmares, and a pair traveling to a isolated location together signifies a fresh tier of fright.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uncomfortable on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the recently released and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for about a year, which we learn early on has marked the period Liz has bolted from past relationships. Nevertheless, she seems optimistic about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are neither as dotted with warning signs nor as suspiciously 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 peculiarities about his family-owned forest retreat (like the reality that he has a eerie relative who lives nearby). But their awkwardness levels are well-matched. They appear comfortable together.

The director introduces discord through his shot choices, instead of subtle hostilities or past events.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are seldom outright hidden, but they're often partially blocked, viewed from strange angles, or framed in scenes with a unsettling amount of headroom. This establishes a trend of confusion that persists as Liz believes she hears soft noises through the house's vents. When she relaxes in the house's posh bath, there's an intensely unforgettable overlay of the adjacent river rushing all around her, like she's about to transcend space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a companion she calls when she's left alone at the cabin. Her friend asks if she did mushrooms; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed role as the female in Malcolm's life – appears like it could head in multiple directions, its frightening components mixed together in a surreal mix. Is it a ghost story, a forest killer movie, or just a really bad trip? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a productive streak for the last year and a half with another movie due out next year, makes it difficult to tell, both in-movie (so many of the creepiest early moments are moments just out of focus or in the corner of the eye) and outside the narrative; his previous movies were the stylistically different serial-killer freakout Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish scary humor The Monkey. This eclecticism, paired with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse marketing, could cause the new film feel to some like a shell game intended to dress up what is, at its core, a fairly straightforward horror story.

Maybe it is that. But part of what renders Perkins' film so invigorating is the manner it prioritizes its visceral effect on an audience over a desire to twist that story into a contemporary relationship parable. As clever as so many contemporary horror movies are, they frequently script for message rather than shooting for immediacy. As a result, some are starved for innovative visuals, surprising juxtapositions or a feeling of genuine, strange enigma. Keeper has all of this, and Perkins knows just how far to advance those components without permitting the movie to turn into vague mystical self-indulgence.

He also seems to recognize what a powerful grounding element he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to do the typical virtuoso demo reel of a woman on the brink of doom. Liz becomes alarmed by the strange things that take place around her, and the character is written and performed with a certain directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who inexplicably avoids inquiring what the hell is going on.) However Maslany delivers a second level to her performance in her unprotected moments: a skeptical glance of her gaze in one direction or another, the fragility of her more courteous smiles, the abbreviated of both her familiarity and quickness to irritation with her unseen pal on the phone. Though no specific skeleton key to her traumatic history awaits, the figure still feels fully realized.

The same applies of the movie as a whole, too. It's not as complex as Sinners or as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's standard-bearers for innovative horror. But when Keeper concludes, its tight confines feel satisfying, appropriate and improbable to generate a sequel. That tidiness emphasizes some of its ideas in a manner that the more obvious messaging of other dating-hell tales don't always manage: perhaps it takes a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to stay so perfectly contained.

• The film arrives in theaters on November 14th.