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In recent years, horror cinema has often explored toxic romance with the similar fervor as a doomed dating app. Starting with manipulated meet-cutes (New; Companion) to chronic emotional reliance (Together) to the rare happy ending (Heart Eyes), it's evident that romantic relationships are mostly gory nightmares, and a pair venturing to a isolated location together signifies a new level of terror.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uneasy on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the recently released and highly secretive scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been a couple for approximately twelve months, which we learn early on has signified the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she seems optimistic about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their early scenes together are not as dotted with red flags or as oddly perfect as other recent characters in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, dry comic timing, and Malcolm has a slightly mumbled accent as he explains some oddities about his ancestral forest retreat (like the reality that he has a creepy cousin who lives close by). But their social discomfort are well-matched. They appear comfortable together.

The director brings in tension through his shot choices, instead of micro-aggressions or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely completely concealed, but they're frequently somewhat blocked, viewed from odd angles, or composed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of headroom. This creates a pattern of confusion that persists as Liz thinks she hears faint noises through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's posh tub, there's an intensely memorable overlay of the nearby stream flowing all around her, as if she's about to go beyond reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she phones when she's left alone at the lodge. Her acquaintance asks if she actually took mushrooms; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed status as the woman in Malcolm's world – seems like it could head in any number of paths, its frightening components blended in a dreamlike jumble. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a really bad trip? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a prolific streak for the last year and a half with another movie due out next year, makes it difficult to tell, both within the story (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 last two films were the stylistically different murderer thriller Longlegs and the fate-based horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, paired with Keeper's elusive and secretive marketing, could cause the new film seem to some like a deceptive trick designed to embellish what is, at its core, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Perhaps it's that. But part of what renders Perkins' film so invigorating is the way it emphasizes its visceral effect on an viewer over a desire to twist that story into a contemporary love allegory. As smart as so many contemporary horror movies are, they often write for theme rather than filming for instant impact. As a result, some are lacking innovative visuals, surprising juxtapositions or a sense of authentic, uncanny mystery. Keeper has all of this, and Perkins understands just how far to advance those components without allowing the movie to become vague mystical excess.

He also seems to know what a strong grounding element he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to do the typical masterful showcase of a female on the verge of oblivion. Liz becomes alarmed by the weird things that take place around her, and the role is scripted and acted with a particular directness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who mysteriously avoids inquiring what the hell is going on.) However Maslany delivers a second level to her performance in her unprotected moments: a cynical flick of her gaze in one direction or another, the fragility of her more polite smiles, the abbreviated of both her closeness and quickness to irritation with her off-screen friend on the call. Though no particular master clue to her traumatic past is revealed, the figure still feels complete.

That's true of the film as a complete piece, too. It's not as rich as Sinners or as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's standard-bearers for original horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its tight confines seem satisfying, appropriate and improbable to generate a sequel. That neatness emphasizes some of its ideas in a way that the more overt messaging of other dating-hell stories don't always achieve: perhaps it requires a mythical horror for the messy affair of relationships to remain so perfectly contained.

• Keeper debuts in theaters on November 14th.