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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has frequently explored toxic romance with the similar fervor as a doomed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (Fresh; Partner) to chronic emotional reliance (United) to the rare happy ending (Heart Eyes), it's clear that romantic relationships are primarily blood-stained hell, and a couple traveling to a secluded spot together signifies a new tier of terror.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uncomfortable on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the recently released and much-concealed scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been a couple for approximately twelve months, which we discover quickly has marked the time Liz has fled past relationships. Nevertheless, she appears optimistic about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are not as dotted with red flags or as suspiciously idyllic as other recent figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a wary, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together way of speaking as he describes some oddities about his family-owned cabin in the woods (like the reality that he has a creepy relative who lives nearby). But their social discomfort are complementary. They seem comfortable together.

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

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom completely hidden, but they're frequently somewhat blocked, shown from strange angles, or composed in shots with a unsettling amount of empty space. This creates a trend of disorientation that continues as Liz believes she hears soft noises through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's posh tub, there's an intensely unforgettable superimposition 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 friend she phones when she's by herself at the lodge. Her friend inquires if she did psychedelics; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

For a while, Keeper – titled after Liz's assumed status as the female in Malcolm's life – appears like it could head in multiple directions, its frightening components blended in a dreamlike jumble. Is it a ghost story, a forest killer movie, or just a really bad experience? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a prolific 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 most unsettling early moments are moments just blurry or in the corner of the eye) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the tonally distinct serial-killer thriller Longlegs and the fate-based horror comedy The Monkey. This eclecticism, combined with Keeper's elusive and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could make the new film seem to some like a shell game intended to dress up what is, at its core, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Perhaps it's that. But one aspect of what makes Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it prioritizes its visceral effect on an audience above a desire to twist that plot into a contemporary relationship parable. As clever as so many contemporary horror movies are, they frequently script for theme instead of filming toward instant impact. As a result, some are lacking innovative visuals, unexpected juxtapositions or a feeling of genuine, uncanny enigma. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins understands just how far to advance those elements without permitting the movie to become vague woo-woo excess.

He also seems to recognize what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to perform the typical masterful showcase of a female on the verge of oblivion. Liz becomes freaked out by the weird things that take place around her, and the role is scripted and performed with a certain directness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who inexplicably avoids asking what the heck is happening.) Yet Maslany delivers a additional layer to her performance in her unprotected moments: a skeptical glance of her gaze in one direction or another, the fragility of her more polite smiles, the shorthand of both her familiarity and speed to irritation with her unseen friend on the phone. Though no particular master clue to her painful history awaits, the figure still feels complete.

The same applies of the movie as a whole, too. It's not as rich as Sinners nor as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for original horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its tight confines seem gratifying, correct and unlikely to generate a follow-up. That neatness emphasizes some of its themes in a way that the more obvious moralizing of other romantic nightmare stories do not always manage: perhaps it requires a fable-like horror for the messy affair of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• The film arrives in cinemas on 14 November.