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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has frequently explored toxic romance with the similar fervor as a doomed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (Fresh; Partner) to chronic emotional reliance (Together) to the rare happy ending (Heart Eyes), it's evident that romantic relationships are primarily gory nightmares, and a pair traveling to a isolated location together represents a fresh level of terror.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uneasy on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning 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. Nevertheless, she appears optimistic about this one. She thinks she understands Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their initial moments together are not as dotted with red flags or as suspiciously 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 describes some peculiarities about his family-owned forest retreat (like the fact that he has a eerie cousin who lives close by). But their awkwardness levels are complementary. They appear at ease together.

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

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom outright concealed, but they're frequently somewhat obscured, shown from odd angles, or framed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of empty space. This establishes a pattern of confusion that continues as Liz thinks she hears soft noises through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious bath, there's an intensely memorable superimposition of the adjacent stream rushing all around her, like she's about to transcend space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a companion she phones when she's by herself at the lodge. Her acquaintance asks if she actually took psychedelics; Liz doesn't answer straightforwardly.

For a while, Keeper – named for Liz's assumed role as the woman in Malcolm's world – seems like it could head in any number of paths, its horror elements mixed together in a dreamlike mix. Is it a ghost story, a forest killer movie, or just a terrible trip? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a productive run for the past 18 months with an additional film scheduled next year, makes it difficult to discern, both within the story (so many of the most unsettling early moments are moments just out of focus or in the corner of the eye) and outside the narrative; his previous movies were the tonally distinct murderer thriller Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, paired with Keeper's elusive and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could cause the new film seem to some like a shell game intended to dress up what is, at its core, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Maybe it is exactly that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it emphasizes its visceral effect on an audience above a wish to bend that story into a modern relationship parable. As clever as so many contemporary horror movies are, they frequently script toward theme rather than shooting for instant impact. As a result, some are lacking innovative visuals, unexpected juxtapositions or a feeling of authentic, uncanny mystery. Keeper possesses each of these, and Perkins understands just how much to push those elements without allowing the movie to turn into vague mystical self-indulgence.

The director also appears to know what a powerful grounding element he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to do the usual masterful demo reel of a female on the verge of doom. Liz does get alarmed by the weird things that take place around her, and the character is written and acted with a certain straightforwardness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously avoids asking what the heck is going on.) Yet Maslany delivers a second level to her performance in her unguarded moments: a cynical glance of her gaze in one direction or another, the fragility of her more courteous grins, the abbreviated of both her closeness and quickness to annoyance with her off-screen pal on the call. Though no particular master clue to her painful history is revealed, the character still feels fully realized.

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 original horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its compact structure seem gratifying, correct and unlikely to generate a sequel. That neatness emphasizes some of its themes in a manner that the more obvious messaging of other romantic nightmare tales don't always achieve: perhaps it requires a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to stay so perfectly contained.

• The film arrives in cinemas on November 14th.