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In recent years, scary movies has frequently explored unhealthy relationships with the similar fervor 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 love affairs are primarily gory nightmares, and a pair venturing to a secluded spot together represents a new tier of terror.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uneasy on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the recently released and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been a couple for about a year, which we discover quickly has signified the period Liz has bolted from past relationships. Nevertheless, she seems optimistic about this one. She believes she understands Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their early scenes together are not as dotted with warning signs or as oddly perfect as other recent characters in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, deadpan comic timing, and Malcolm has a slightly slurred-together accent as he describes some oddities about his family-owned cabin in the woods (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 tension through his camera work, rather than subtle hostilities or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom completely hidden, but they're often partially obscured, viewed from odd perspectives, or composed in shots with a disconcerting amount of empty space. This establishes a pattern of confusion that persists as Liz believes she hears soft sounds through the house's vents. When she relaxes in the house's luxurious tub, there's an deeply unforgettable overlay of the adjacent river flowing all around her, as if she's about to go beyond reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a companion she calls when she's left alone at the lodge. Her friend asks if she did psychedelics; Liz doesn't answer directly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed status as the woman in Malcolm's life – seems like it could go in multiple directions, its horror elements blended in a surreal mix. Is it a ghost story, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a really bad experience? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a productive streak for the last year and a half with an additional film due out next year, complicates efforts to tell, both in-movie (so many of the most unsettling early moments are instances just out of focus or in the corner of the vision) and extra-textually; his last two films were the stylistically different murderer freakout Longlegs and the fate-based horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, paired with Keeper's elusive and secretive marketing, could make the latest release feel to some like a deceptive trick designed to dress up what is, at its core, a fairly straightforward scary narrative.

Maybe it is exactly that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so invigorating is the manner it prioritizes its visceral effect on an audience over a desire to twist that plot into a contemporary relationship parable. As smart as so many current scary films are, they frequently write for message instead of shooting for instant impact. Consequently, some are starved for innovative visuals, surprising contrasts or a sense of authentic, uncanny enigma. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins knows just how much to advance those components without allowing the movie to turn into vague mystical self-indulgence.

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 female on the brink of oblivion. Liz becomes freaked out by the strange occurrences that take place around her, and the role is scripted and acted with a certain directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously sidesteps inquiring what the heck is going on.) However Maslany provides a additional layer to her acting in her unguarded moments: a skeptical flick of her eyes in one way or another, the fragility of her more courteous grins, the shorthand of both her closeness and speed to annoyance with her unseen pal on the call. Though no specific skeleton key to her traumatic history awaits, the figure still feels fully realized.

The same applies of the film as a complete piece, too. It's not as complex as Sinners or as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for innovative horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its tight confines feel gratifying, appropriate and unlikely to spawn a sequel. That tidiness emphasizes some of its ideas in a way that the more obvious messaging of other romantic nightmare tales don't always manage: maybe it requires a fable-like horror for the complicated business of relationships to stay so neatly kept.

• The film debuts in theaters on November 14th.