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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has frequently delved into unhealthy relationships with the same intensity as a doomed dating app. Starting with engineered first encounters (Fresh; Partner) to long-term codependence (United) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's clear that love affairs are primarily gory nightmares, and a pair venturing to a secluded spot together represents a fresh level of fright.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uneasy on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the new and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been a couple for approximately twelve months, which we learn quickly has marked the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she appears optimistic about this one. She thinks she knows Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their initial moments together are not as dotted with red flags or as suspiciously idyllic as other current characters in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a cautious, dry sense of humor, and Malcolm has a slightly mumbled way of speaking as he explains some peculiarities about his ancestral cabin in the woods (like the reality that he has a eerie relative who lives close by). But their social discomfort are complementary. They appear comfortable together.

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

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are seldom completely concealed, but they're frequently somewhat obscured, viewed from odd angles, or composed in scenes with a unsettling amount of empty space. This establishes a pattern of disorientation that continues as Liz believes she hears soft noises through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious bath, there's an intensely unforgettable superimposition of the adjacent river flowing all around her, as if she's about to go beyond reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she calls when she's by herself at the cabin. Her acquaintance inquires if she actually took psychedelics; Liz doesn't answer directly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's assumed role as the female in Malcolm's world – appears like it could go in multiple paths, its frightening components mixed together in a surreal jumble. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a really bad experience? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a productive streak for the past 18 months with an additional film due out next year, makes it difficult to discern, both within the story (so many of the creepiest initial scenes are moments just blurry or in the periphery of the vision) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the tonally distinct 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 cause the latest release feel to some like a shell game designed to dress up what is, at its core, a pretty simple horror story.

Maybe it is exactly that. But part of what renders Perkins' film so invigorating is the manner it emphasizes its visceral effect on an viewer above a desire to bend that story into a modern love allegory. As clever as so many current scary films are, they often write for theme rather than shooting toward immediacy. As a result, some are lacking original imagery, unexpected contrasts or a feeling of genuine, uncanny mystery. Keeper possesses each of these, and Perkins knows just how far to push those elements without permitting the movie to become vague woo-woo excess.

The director also appears to recognize what a strong stabilizing force 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 freaked out by the weird things that happen around her, and the character is written and performed with a particular straightforwardness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who inexplicably sidesteps asking what the hell is going on.) However Maslany delivers a second level to her acting in her unprotected moments: a cynical glance of her eyes in one way or another, the tenuousness of her more courteous grins, the abbreviated of both her familiarity and speed to annoyance with her unseen friend on the phone. Though no specific master clue to her painful past awaits, the character still seems complete.

That's true of the movie as a complete piece, too. It's not as complex as Sinners or as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for original horror. But when Keeper concludes, its compact structure seem satisfying, correct and unlikely to spawn a sequel. That tidiness drives home some of its ideas in a way that the more overt moralizing of other romantic nightmare tales don't always achieve: maybe it takes a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to stay so perfectly contained.

• Keeper debuts in cinemas on November 14th.