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In recent years, scary movies has frequently delved into toxic romance with the similar intensity as a cursed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (New; Partner) to long-term codependence (Together) to the rare happy ending (Love-Struck), it's evident that romantic relationships are mostly gory nightmares, and a pair venturing to a isolated spot together signifies a new level of terror.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uncomfortable on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the recently released and highly secretive horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we learn quickly has marked the period Liz has bolted from past relationships. Nevertheless, she appears hopeful about this one. She believes she understands Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are neither as dotted with warning signs or as oddly idyllic as other current figures in the ill-fated pair 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 family-owned cabin in the woods (like the fact that he has a eerie relative who lives nearby). But their awkwardness levels are well-matched. They seem at ease together.

The director introduces discord through his shot choices, instead of micro-aggressions or past events.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are seldom completely concealed, but they're frequently somewhat blocked, 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 thinks she perceives soft noises through the house's vents. When she relaxes in the house's luxurious tub, there's an intensely unforgettable overlay of the nearby river flowing all around her, as if she's about to go beyond space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she phones when she's by herself at the cabin. Her acquaintance asks if she did psychedelics; Liz avoids responding directly.

For a while, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed role as the woman in Malcolm's world – appears like it could head in multiple paths, its frightening components mixed together in a surreal mix. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a really bad trip? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a prolific streak for the last year and a half with another movie scheduled next year, complicates efforts to discern, both within the story (so many of the most unsettling early moments are instances just blurry or in the corner of the eye) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the stylistically different murderer thriller Longlegs and the fate-based scary humor The Monkey. This eclecticism, combined with Keeper's elusive and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could cause the latest release feel to some like a shell game intended to embellish what is, at its core, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Perhaps it's that. But part of what makes Perkins' film so invigorating is the way it prioritizes its visceral effect on an audience over a desire to bend that plot into a modern love allegory. As smart as so many current horror movies are, they frequently script for message instead of shooting toward instant impact. As a result, some are starved for innovative visuals, unexpected juxtapositions or a feeling of authentic, strange enigma. Keeper has all of this, and Perkins understands just how much to push those components without allowing the movie to turn into abstract mystical self-indulgence.

He also seems to know what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to do the usual virtuoso demo reel of a woman on the brink of doom. Liz becomes alarmed by the strange occurrences that take place around her, and the character is written and performed with a certain straightforwardness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously avoids inquiring what the hell is going on.) Yet Maslany delivers a additional layer to her acting in her unguarded times: a skeptical glance of her gaze in one direction or another, the tenuousness of her more courteous smiles, the shorthand of both her closeness and quickness to annoyance with her off-screen pal on the call. Though no particular skeleton key to her traumatic past is revealed, the character still seems 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 standard-bearers for innovative horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its compact structure seem gratifying, correct and improbable to generate a follow-up. That tidiness drives home some of its themes in a way that the more obvious messaging of other romantic nightmare tales don't always achieve: 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.