Keeper Film Analysis – Love Story Descends into the Underworld in Effectively Eerie Terrifying Tale

Over the past few seasons, horror cinema has often explored toxic romance with the same intensity as a doomed dating app. Starting with manipulated meet-cutes (Fresh; Companion) 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 traveling to a secluded location together represents a new tier of fright.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uneasy on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the new and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for about a year, which we discover quickly has marked the time Liz has fled past relationships. Nevertheless, she seems hopeful about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their early scenes together are neither as filled with red flags nor as suspiciously idyllic as other recent figures in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a wary, dry sense of humor, and Malcolm has a slightly slurred-together accent as he describes some peculiarities about his ancestral forest retreat (like the fact that he has a creepy relative who lives close by). But their social discomfort are complementary. They seem comfortable together.

The director introduces tension through his shot choices, instead of subtle hostilities or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are seldom completely hidden, but they're frequently somewhat blocked, shown from strange angles, or composed in shots with a disconcerting amount of empty space. This establishes a trend of confusion that persists as Liz thinks she hears soft sounds through the house's air ducts. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious bath, there's an deeply memorable superimposition of the nearby stream rushing all around her, as if she's about to go beyond space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a friend she phones when she's left alone at the lodge. Her acquaintance asks if she actually took mushrooms; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

For a while, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed role as the woman in Malcolm's world – appears like it could go in any number of paths, its frightening components blended in a dreamlike mix. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a terrible experience? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a productive streak for the past 18 months with another movie scheduled next year, complicates efforts to discern, both in-movie (so many of the creepiest early moments are moments just out of focus or in the periphery of the vision) and extra-textually; his last two films were the tonally distinct serial-killer freakout Longlegs and the fate-based scary humor The Monkey. This eclecticism, combined with Keeper's mysterious and secretive marketing, could make the latest release seem to some like a deceptive trick intended to dress up what is, at its core, a fairly straightforward horror story.

Perhaps it's exactly that. But part of what makes Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it emphasizes its visceral effect on an viewer over a desire to bend that plot into a contemporary relationship parable. As clever as so many contemporary horror movies are, they frequently script toward message rather than shooting for instant impact. Consequently, some are lacking original imagery, surprising contrasts or a sense of genuine, uncanny mystery. Keeper has all of this, and Perkins knows just how far to advance those components without allowing the movie to turn into vague woo-woo self-indulgence.

The director also appears to recognize what a strong grounding element he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the typical masterful showcase of a woman on the verge of oblivion. Liz does get alarmed by the strange occurrences that happen around her, and the character is written and acted with a particular directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who inexplicably sidesteps inquiring what the hell is happening.) However Maslany delivers a additional layer to her acting in her unguarded moments: a cynical glance of her eyes in one way or another, the fragility of her more polite grins, the abbreviated of both her closeness and speed to annoyance with her unseen friend on the call. Though no particular skeleton key to her traumatic past awaits, the character still seems fully realized.

That's true of the film as a whole, too. It's not as complex as Sinners nor as narratively ambitious as Weapons, two of 2025's standard-bearers for original horror. But when Keeper concludes, its compact structure feel gratifying, correct and unlikely to spawn a sequel. That neatness emphasizes some of its ideas in a way that the more overt messaging of other dating-hell stories do not always manage: maybe it takes a fable-like horror for the messy business of relationships to stay so perfectly contained.

• Keeper debuts in cinemas on 14 November.