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Over the past few seasons, horror cinema has frequently explored toxic romance with the same fervor as a doomed dating app. Starting with engineered first encounters (New; Companion) to chronic emotional reliance (United) to the rare happy ending (Heart Eyes), it's clear that romantic relationships are mostly gory nightmares, and a couple traveling to a secluded location together represents a fresh 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 new and highly secretive horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we discover quickly has marked the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Nevertheless, she appears optimistic about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their initial moments together are neither as dotted with warning signs nor as oddly perfect as other current figures in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a wary, dry sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together accent as he describes some peculiarities about his family-owned forest retreat (like the reality that he has a eerie cousin who lives nearby). But their social discomfort are well-matched. They seem comfortable together.

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

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely outright hidden, but they're frequently partially obscured, viewed from odd perspectives, or composed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of empty space. This establishes a pattern of disorientation that persists as Liz believes she hears soft sounds through the house's air ducts. When she relaxes in the house's luxurious bath, there's an deeply unforgettable superimposition 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 phones when she's by herself at the cabin. Her acquaintance inquires if she actually took mushrooms; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – titled after Liz's supposed status as the female in Malcolm's world – seems like it could go in any number of paths, its horror elements mixed together 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 run for the last year and a half with an additional film scheduled next year, complicates efforts to tell, both within the story (so many of the creepiest initial scenes are moments just blurry or in the corner of the vision) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the stylistically different serial-killer thriller Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, combined with Keeper's elusive and secretive ad campaign, could make the latest release feel to some like a deceptive trick intended to dress up what is, fundamentally, a fairly straightforward horror story.

Maybe it is exactly that. But one aspect of what makes Perkins' film so refreshing is the way it prioritizes its physical impact on an audience over a wish to bend that story into a modern relationship parable. As clever as so many current scary films are, they often write toward message instead of shooting for instant impact. Consequently, some are starved for innovative visuals, surprising contrasts or a feeling of genuine, strange enigma. Keeper has all of this, and Perkins understands just how far to push those components without allowing the movie to turn into vague woo-woo self-indulgence.

He also seems to know what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the typical masterful showcase of a female on the brink of oblivion. Liz becomes freaked out by the weird occurrences that take place around her, and the character is scripted and acted with a particular straightforwardness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously sidesteps inquiring what the hell is happening.) However Maslany provides a additional layer to her performance in her unguarded times: a cynical flick of her gaze in one way or another, the tenuousness of her more courteous smiles, the abbreviated of both her familiarity and quickness to irritation with her unseen friend on the call. Though no particular skeleton key to her painful past is revealed, the figure still feels complete.

That's true of the movie 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 seem satisfying, correct and unlikely to generate a follow-up. That neatness drives home some of its ideas in a way that the more overt messaging of other dating-hell tales don't always achieve: perhaps it takes a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• Keeper debuts in cinemas on 14 November.