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Over the past few seasons, horror cinema has often delved into unhealthy relationships with the same intensity as a doomed dating app. Starting with manipulated meet-cutes (New; Partner) to long-term codependence (Together) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's clear that love affairs are primarily blood-stained hell, and a pair venturing to a secluded spot together represents a fresh tier of terror.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uncomfortable on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the new and highly secretive scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for about a year, which we learn quickly has marked the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she seems optimistic about this one. She believes she understands Malcolm pretty well, and their early scenes together are not as filled with warning signs nor as suspiciously idyllic as other current characters in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a wary, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together accent as he describes some oddities about his family-owned cabin in the woods (like the fact that he has a creepy cousin who lives nearby). But their awkwardness levels are well-matched. They seem at ease together.

The director brings in tension through his camera work, rather than micro-aggressions or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are seldom outright concealed, but they're often partially blocked, viewed from strange angles, or framed in scenes with a unsettling amount of empty space. This creates a trend of confusion that persists as Liz believes she perceives faint sounds through the house's vents. When she relaxes in the house's luxurious bath, there's an deeply memorable overlay of the adjacent river rushing all around her, like she's about to go beyond space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she calls when she's by herself at the lodge. Her acquaintance asks if she actually took psychedelics; Liz doesn't answer directly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's assumed role as the woman in Malcolm's life – seems like it could go in multiple paths, its frightening components mixed together in a surreal mix. Is it a ghost story, a forest killer movie, or just a terrible experience? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a productive run 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 instances just out of focus or in the corner of the eye) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the tonally distinct murderer freakout Longlegs and the fate-based horror comedy The Monkey. This eclecticism, combined with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse marketing, could make the new film feel to some like a shell game intended to dress up what is, at its core, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Maybe it is that. But part of what makes Perkins' film so invigorating is the way it prioritizes its physical impact on an viewer over a wish to twist that plot into a modern love allegory. As smart as so many contemporary horror movies are, they frequently script for theme rather than filming for instant impact. As a result, some are lacking innovative visuals, surprising contrasts or a feeling of authentic, uncanny mystery. Keeper has all of this, and Perkins knows just how far to push those components without permitting the movie to become vague woo-woo excess.

The director also appears to recognize what a powerful grounding element he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to perform the typical masterful demo reel of a female on the verge of oblivion. Liz becomes freaked out by the weird things that take place around her, and the role is written and performed with a certain straightforwardness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who inexplicably sidesteps asking what the hell is going on.) Yet Maslany provides a additional layer to her performance in her unprotected times: a skeptical glance of her eyes in one way or another, the tenuousness of her more polite smiles, the abbreviated of both her closeness and speed to irritation with her off-screen friend on the phone. Though no particular skeleton key to her painful history is revealed, the figure still feels fully realized.

That's true of the movie as a complete piece, too. It's not as rich as Sinners nor as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for innovative horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its tight confines seem satisfying, appropriate and unlikely to spawn a sequel. That neatness drives home some of its ideas in a manner that the more overt messaging of other dating-hell tales do not always manage: perhaps it takes a fable-like horror for the messy business of relationships to remain so perfectly contained.

• Keeper arrives in cinemas on November 14th.