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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has frequently delved into toxic romance with the similar intensity as a doomed dating app. Starting with engineered first encounters (New; Partner) to long-term codependence (United) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's evident that romantic relationships are mostly gory nightmares, and a couple traveling to a secluded spot together signifies a new tier of terror.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uncomfortable on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the recently released and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for about a year, which we discover early on has marked the period Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she appears optimistic about this one. She thinks she understands Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are not as filled with red flags nor as oddly perfect as other current figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a slightly slurred-together accent as he describes some oddities about his ancestral forest retreat (like the reality that he has a eerie cousin who lives nearby). But their awkwardness levels are complementary. They appear at ease together.

Osgood Perkins introduces tension through his shot choices, instead of micro-aggressions or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are seldom outright hidden, but they're often somewhat blocked, viewed from strange angles, or composed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of headroom. This creates a trend of disorientation that persists as Liz thinks she perceives faint noises through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious bath, there's an intensely unforgettable superimposition of the adjacent stream flowing all around her, like she's about to go beyond reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she calls when she's left alone at the cabin. Her friend asks if she did mushrooms; Liz doesn't answer straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed status as the woman in Malcolm's world – seems like it could go in any number of directions, its horror elements blended in a dreamlike mix. Is it a ghost story, a forest killer movie, or just a really bad experience? Perkins, a horror specialist who has been on a prolific run for the past 18 months with an additional film scheduled next year, makes it difficult to discern, both in-movie (so many of the most unsettling initial scenes are instances just blurry or in the periphery of the eye) and outside the narrative; his last two films were the tonally distinct murderer thriller Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, combined with Keeper's mysterious and secretive ad campaign, could cause the new film seem to some like a deceptive trick designed to dress up what is, fundamentally, a fairly straightforward horror story.

Maybe it is exactly that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the way it emphasizes its visceral effect on an viewer over a wish to twist that plot into a contemporary love allegory. As smart as so many contemporary horror movies are, they frequently script for message rather than filming for immediacy. As a result, some are lacking original imagery, surprising contrasts or a sense of genuine, strange enigma. Keeper possesses each of these, and Perkins knows just how much to push those components without permitting the movie to turn into abstract woo-woo self-indulgence.

He also seems to know what a strong grounding element he has in Maslany, who isn't called upon to do the usual masterful showcase of a woman on the brink of oblivion. Liz does get freaked out 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 mysteriously avoids inquiring what the heck is happening.) Yet Maslany delivers a additional layer to her performance in her unprotected times: a cynical flick of her eyes in one direction or another, the fragility of her more courteous smiles, the shorthand of both her closeness and quickness to annoyance with her unseen friend on the phone. Though no specific master clue to her traumatic past is revealed, the character still seems complete.

The same applies of the movie as a whole, too. It's not as rich as Sinners nor as narratively ambitious as Weapons, two of 2025's standard-bearers for innovative horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its tight confines feel gratifying, appropriate and unlikely to generate a follow-up. That tidiness emphasizes some of its ideas in a manner that the more overt messaging of other dating-hell stories don't always achieve: perhaps it requires a mythical horror for the complicated business of relationships to remain so neatly kept.

• The film debuts in cinemas on November 14th.