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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has frequently delved into unhealthy relationships with the same intensity as a cursed dating app. Starting with engineered first encounters (New; Partner) to chronic emotional reliance (United) to the rare happy ending (Love-Struck), it's evident that love affairs are mostly gory nightmares, and a pair venturing to a secluded location together signifies a new level of fright.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uneasy on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the recently released and much-concealed scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for about a year, which we discover early on has marked the time 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 neither as dotted with warning signs nor as suspiciously perfect as other current characters in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a wary, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together way of speaking as he explains some oddities about his family-owned forest retreat (like the fact that he has a creepy relative who lives nearby). But their awkwardness levels are well-matched. They appear at ease together.

The director brings in tension through his camera work, rather than subtle hostilities or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are rarely completely concealed, but they're often somewhat blocked, shown from strange perspectives, or composed in shots with a disconcerting amount of empty space. This creates a pattern of disorientation that persists as Liz believes she perceives soft sounds through the house's air ducts. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious tub, there's an deeply unforgettable superimposition of the nearby stream rushing 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 calls when she's left alone at the cabin. Her acquaintance inquires if she actually took psychedelics; Liz avoids responding directly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's assumed role as the woman in Malcolm's life – appears like it could head in any number of directions, its frightening components mixed together in a surreal jumble. Is it a ghost story, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a really bad experience? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a productive 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 moments just out of focus or in the corner of the eye) and extra-textually; his last two films were the tonally distinct serial-killer freakout Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This eclecticism, combined with Keeper's elusive and spoiler-averse marketing, could cause the new film feel to some like a shell game intended to dress up what is, fundamentally, a fairly straightforward scary narrative.

Maybe it is exactly that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so invigorating is the way it emphasizes its visceral effect on an viewer above a wish to twist that plot into a contemporary love allegory. As smart as so many contemporary horror movies are, they frequently write for message instead of shooting for instant impact. As a result, some are starved for original imagery, unexpected juxtapositions or a sense of authentic, uncanny mystery. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins understands just how far to advance those components without permitting the movie to become abstract mystical self-indulgence.

He also seems to recognize what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to do the usual masterful demo reel of a woman on the verge of doom. Liz becomes alarmed by the weird things that take place around her, and the role is written and performed with a particular directness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who inexplicably avoids inquiring what the hell is happening.) Yet Maslany provides a second level to her acting in her unguarded times: a skeptical glance of her gaze in one way or another, the fragility of her more polite grins, the shorthand of both her familiarity and speed to annoyance with her unseen friend on the call. Though no particular skeleton key to her painful history awaits, the figure still seems complete.

That's true 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 finishes up, its tight confines feel gratifying, correct and unlikely to spawn a follow-up. That tidiness emphasizes some of its themes in a way that the more obvious messaging of other dating-hell tales do not always manage: perhaps it takes a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to remain so perfectly contained.

• The film debuts in theaters on 14 November.