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Over the past few seasons, horror cinema has often delved into unhealthy relationships with the same fervor as a doomed dating app. From engineered first encounters (New; Companion) 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 traveling to a isolated spot together signifies a new tier of fright.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uncomfortable on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the new and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we learn quickly has marked the period Liz has fled past relationships. Still, she seems optimistic about this one. She thinks she knows Malcolm pretty well, and their early scenes together are neither as dotted with warning signs nor as suspiciously perfect as other current figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, deadpan comic timing, and Malcolm has a slightly mumbled accent 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 awkwardness levels are complementary. They seem at ease together.

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

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom completely hidden, but they're often partially blocked, shown from odd perspectives, or composed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of empty space. This establishes a trend of confusion that continues as Liz thinks she hears soft noises through the house's air ducts. When she relaxes in the house's posh tub, there's an intensely unforgettable overlay of the adjacent river rushing all around her, as if she's about to go beyond space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a companion she calls when she's by herself at the lodge. Her friend asks if she did mushrooms; Liz doesn't answer straightforwardly.

For a while, Keeper – named for Liz's assumed role as the female in Malcolm's life – appears like it could head in multiple directions, its frightening components blended in a surreal jumble. 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 prolific run for the past 18 months with another movie due out next year, makes it difficult to tell, both within the story (so many of the most unsettling early moments are moments just blurry or in the corner of the vision) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the stylistically different murderer freakout Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, combined with Keeper's elusive and spoiler-averse ad campaign, could make the latest release seem to some like a shell game designed to dress up what is, fundamentally, a fairly straightforward scary narrative.

Maybe it is exactly that. But part of what makes Perkins' film so refreshing is the way it prioritizes its physical impact on an viewer over a wish to twist that plot into a modern relationship parable. As clever as so many contemporary scary films are, they often write for message instead of filming for immediacy. Consequently, some are starved for original imagery, unexpected juxtapositions or a feeling of authentic, uncanny mystery. Keeper possesses each of these, and Perkins knows just how far to advance those elements without allowing the movie to become vague woo-woo self-indulgence.

He also seems to recognize what a powerful stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to do the usual virtuoso showcase of a woman on the brink of doom. Liz does get alarmed by the strange things that take place around her, and the character is written and acted with a particular straightforwardness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who inexplicably avoids asking what the hell is going on.) Yet Maslany delivers a second level to her performance in her unprotected moments: a cynical flick of her eyes in one way or another, the tenuousness of her more polite grins, the shorthand of both her closeness and speed to annoyance with her off-screen pal on the call. Though no specific master clue to her painful past is revealed, the figure still seems fully realized.

The same applies of the film as a whole, 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 finishes up, its tight confines feel satisfying, correct and improbable to generate a sequel. That neatness drives home some of its ideas in a manner that the more overt messaging of other dating-hell tales don't always manage: maybe it takes a fable-like horror for the complicated business of relationships to remain so perfectly contained.

• The film debuts in cinemas on November 14th.