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Over the past few seasons, horror cinema has frequently explored unhealthy relationships with the same intensity as a doomed dating app. Starting with engineered first encounters (Fresh; Partner) to long-term codependence (Together) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's evident that romantic relationships are primarily gory nightmares, and a couple venturing to a secluded location together represents a new tier of fright.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uncomfortable on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the new and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been a couple for approximately twelve months, which we discover quickly has marked the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she seems hopeful about this one. She believes she understands Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their initial moments together are neither as filled with red flags nor as suspiciously idyllic as other recent characters in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a wary, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a slightly slurred-together way of speaking as he explains some oddities about his ancestral forest retreat (like the reality that he has a eerie cousin who lives close by). But their awkwardness levels are complementary. They appear at ease together.

Osgood Perkins introduces discord through his shot choices, instead of subtle hostilities or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely completely hidden, but they're often somewhat blocked, viewed from strange angles, or composed in shots with a unsettling amount of headroom. This creates a pattern of disorientation that persists as Liz thinks she perceives faint noises through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's posh bath, there's an intensely memorable overlay of the nearby river flowing all around her, like she's about to go beyond space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a friend she calls when she's by herself at the lodge. Her acquaintance asks if she actually took psychedelics; Liz doesn't answer straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – titled after Liz's assumed role as the female in Malcolm's life – appears like it could head in any number of directions, its frightening components blended in a dreamlike jumble. Is it a supernatural tale, a forest killer movie, or just a terrible trip? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a prolific run for the past 18 months with another movie due out next year, makes it difficult to tell, both within the story (so many of the most unsettling initial scenes are instances just blurry or in the corner of the eye) and extra-textually; his last two films were the tonally distinct murderer freakout Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish scary humor The Monkey. This diversity, paired with Keeper's elusive and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could cause the latest release feel to some like a shell game designed to embellish what is, at its core, a pretty simple horror story.

Maybe it is that. But part of what makes Perkins' film so refreshing is the way it emphasizes its physical impact on an audience over a wish to twist that story into a contemporary relationship parable. As smart as so many current horror movies are, they often script for theme rather than filming for instant impact. As a result, some are lacking innovative visuals, unexpected contrasts or a sense of genuine, uncanny enigma. Keeper has each of these, and Perkins knows just how much to advance those elements without allowing the movie to turn into vague woo-woo excess.

The director also appears to know what a powerful grounding element he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the typical masterful demo reel of a woman on the verge of doom. Liz becomes alarmed by the weird things that take place around her, and the role is written and performed with a particular straightforwardness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who inexplicably sidesteps asking what the heck is going on.) However Maslany provides a second level to her acting in her unprotected times: a skeptical glance of her gaze in one way or another, the fragility of her more courteous smiles, the abbreviated of both her closeness and quickness to irritation with her off-screen friend on the call. Though no specific skeleton key to her traumatic past awaits, the character still feels complete.

That's true of the film as a complete piece, too. It's not as complex as Sinners nor as narratively ambitious as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for innovative horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its tight confines feel satisfying, correct and unlikely to generate a follow-up. That neatness drives home some of its themes in a way that the more overt messaging of other romantic nightmare stories do not always manage: maybe it takes a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• The film debuts in theaters on 14 November.