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In recent years, scary movies has often delved into toxic romance with the same intensity as a doomed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (Fresh; Partner) to long-term codependence (Together) to the rare happy ending (Heart Eyes), it's clear that romantic relationships are primarily gory nightmares, and a couple venturing to a secluded spot together signifies a new level of fright.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uncomfortable on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the new and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for about a year, which we discover quickly has signified the period Liz has bolted from past relationships. Nevertheless, she appears hopeful about this one. She believes she understands Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their initial moments together are not as dotted with red flags nor as suspiciously perfect as other recent characters in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a wary, dry comic timing, and Malcolm has a slightly slurred-together way of speaking as he explains some oddities about his ancestral cabin in the woods (like the fact that he has a eerie relative who lives nearby). But their awkwardness levels are complementary. They seem at ease together.

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

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are seldom completely concealed, but they're frequently somewhat blocked, viewed from strange angles, or framed in scenes with a unsettling amount of headroom. This creates a trend of disorientation that continues as Liz believes she perceives faint noises through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious tub, there's an intensely memorable 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 tells a friend she phones when she's left alone at the cabin. Her friend inquires if she did mushrooms; Liz doesn't answer directly.

For a while, Keeper – titled after Liz's supposed status as the woman in Malcolm's world – seems like it could head in multiple paths, its horror elements mixed together in a dreamlike 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 run 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 most unsettling early moments are instances just out of focus or in the corner of the eye) and extra-textually; his last two films were the tonally distinct murderer freakout Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish scary humor The Monkey. This diversity, combined with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could cause the new film seem to some like a deceptive trick intended to embellish what is, fundamentally, a fairly straightforward scary narrative.

Perhaps it's that. But part of what makes Perkins' film so invigorating is the way it emphasizes its visceral effect on an audience over a wish to bend that plot into a contemporary relationship parable. As smart as so many contemporary horror movies are, they often write for theme rather than shooting for immediacy. As a result, some are lacking original imagery, unexpected juxtapositions or a feeling of authentic, uncanny enigma. Keeper possesses each of these, and Perkins understands just how far to advance those elements without allowing the movie to turn into abstract mystical self-indulgence.

He also seems to know what a powerful stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the typical masterful demo reel of a woman on the verge of oblivion. Liz becomes alarmed by the strange things that happen around her, and the character is written and acted with a certain straightforwardness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who inexplicably avoids inquiring what the heck is going on.) Yet Maslany provides a second level to her performance in her unguarded moments: a cynical flick of her gaze in one way or another, the tenuousness of her more courteous grins, the shorthand of both her closeness and speed to irritation with her off-screen pal on the call. Though no particular master clue to her painful past awaits, the character still seems complete.

The same applies of the movie as a complete piece, too. It's not as rich as Sinners or as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for original horror. But when Keeper concludes, its tight confines feel gratifying, correct and improbable to generate a follow-up. That neatness emphasizes some of its themes in a manner that the more overt messaging of other romantic nightmare stories do not always manage: maybe it requires a mythical horror for the complicated affair of relationships to stay so perfectly contained.

• The film debuts in cinemas on November 14th.