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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has frequently delved into toxic romance with the similar intensity as a doomed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (New; Companion) to long-term codependence (United) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's clear that romantic relationships are primarily gory nightmares, and a couple venturing to a isolated location together signifies a new level of terror.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uncomfortable 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 a couple for approximately twelve months, which we learn early on has signified the period Liz has fled past relationships. Still, she appears optimistic about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are neither as dotted with red flags nor as suspiciously idyllic as other recent figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, dry sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat mumbled way of speaking as he explains some peculiarities about his ancestral forest retreat (like the fact that he has a eerie cousin who lives nearby). But their social discomfort are complementary. They appear at ease together.

The director introduces discord through his camera work, rather than subtle hostilities or past events.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely completely hidden, but they're frequently partially blocked, viewed from strange angles, or composed in scenes with a unsettling amount of empty space. This creates a pattern of confusion that persists as Liz thinks she hears soft sounds through the house's air ducts. When she unwinds in the house's posh bath, there's an intensely memorable superimposition of the nearby stream flowing all around her, as if she's about to transcend space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a friend she calls when she's left alone at the cabin. Her friend inquires if she actually took mushrooms; Liz avoids responding directly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's assumed status as the female in Malcolm's world – appears like it could head in any number of paths, its horror elements blended in a surreal mix. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a really bad experience? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a productive streak for the last year and a half with another movie scheduled next year, complicates efforts to discern, both in-movie (so many of the creepiest early moments are instances just out of focus or in the corner of the vision) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the tonally distinct murderer freakout Longlegs and the fate-based horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, paired with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could make the new film feel to some like a shell game intended to dress up what is, fundamentally, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Perhaps it's exactly that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it emphasizes its physical impact on an viewer over a desire to twist that plot into a contemporary relationship parable. As smart as so many current scary films are, they often script for theme instead of filming for instant impact. Consequently, some are lacking original imagery, surprising juxtapositions or a feeling of authentic, strange enigma. Keeper possesses each of these, and Perkins understands just how much to push those elements without allowing the movie to become abstract mystical self-indulgence.

He also seems to recognize what a powerful stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to do the typical masterful demo reel of a woman on the verge of oblivion. Liz does get freaked out by the weird occurrences that happen around her, and the character is scripted and acted with a certain straightforwardness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who mysteriously sidesteps asking what the heck is going on.) Yet Maslany provides a additional layer to her acting in her unguarded moments: a cynical glance of her gaze in one way or another, the tenuousness of her more polite smiles, the abbreviated of both her familiarity and quickness to annoyance with her unseen friend on the phone. Though no particular skeleton key to her painful past awaits, the figure still feels fully realized.

The same applies of the film as a whole, too. It's not as rich as Sinners or as narratively ambitious as Weapons, two of 2025's standard-bearers for innovative horror. But when Keeper concludes, its tight confines feel 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 romantic nightmare tales do not always manage: maybe it requires a fable-like horror for the messy affair of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• The film debuts in cinemas on 14 November.