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In recent years, horror cinema has frequently delved into toxic romance with the same fervor as a cursed dating app. From engineered first encounters (Fresh; Companion) to long-term codependence (United) to the occasional success story (Love-Struck), it's clear that romantic relationships are primarily blood-stained hell, and a pair venturing to a secluded location together signifies a new level of fright.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uncomfortable on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the new and highly secretive 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 seems hopeful about this one. She thinks she knows Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their early scenes together are not as dotted with warning signs nor as suspiciously idyllic as other recent characters in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a wary, dry comic timing, and Malcolm has a slightly slurred-together accent as he explains some oddities about his family-owned cabin in the woods (like the fact that he has a creepy relative who lives close by). But their social discomfort are well-matched. They appear comfortable together.

Osgood Perkins introduces discord through his shot choices, rather than subtle hostilities or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are seldom outright hidden, but they're often partially blocked, shown from odd angles, or framed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of headroom. This establishes a pattern of disorientation that persists as Liz thinks she perceives faint noises through the house's air ducts. When she relaxes in the house's posh bath, there's an intensely memorable superimposition of the nearby river rushing all around her, like she's about to transcend reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a companion she calls when she's by herself at the lodge. Her acquaintance inquires if she actually took psychedelics; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

For a while, Keeper – titled after Liz's supposed status as the female in Malcolm's life – seems like it could head in multiple paths, its horror elements blended in a dreamlike 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 last year and a half with another movie scheduled next year, makes it difficult to tell, both in-movie (so many of the creepiest early moments are moments just out of focus or in the periphery of the eye) and extra-textually; his last two films were the stylistically different murderer 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 embellish what is, fundamentally, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Perhaps it's that. But part of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it emphasizes its physical impact on an audience above a wish to twist that plot into a modern love allegory. As smart as so many contemporary horror movies are, they often write toward message rather than filming for instant impact. Consequently, some are lacking original imagery, surprising contrasts or a sense of authentic, strange enigma. Keeper has all of this, and Perkins understands just how far to advance those components without allowing the movie to become abstract mystical excess.

He also seems to recognize what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to do the usual virtuoso showcase of a female on the verge of doom. Liz does get freaked out by the strange things that take place around her, and the character is written and acted with a certain directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously sidesteps inquiring what the heck is going on.) However Maslany provides a second level to her performance in her unguarded moments: a skeptical flick of her eyes in one direction or another, the fragility of her more courteous grins, the shorthand of both her closeness and speed to irritation with her off-screen friend on the call. Though no particular skeleton key to her painful past is revealed, the character still seems complete.

The same applies of the movie as a whole, too. It's not as complex as Sinners nor as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's leading examples for innovative horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its tight confines feel satisfying, correct and unlikely to generate a follow-up. That neatness emphasizes some of its ideas in a way that the more overt messaging of other romantic nightmare stories don't always manage: perhaps it takes a mythical horror for the complicated affair of relationships to remain so perfectly contained.

• Keeper debuts in cinemas on 14 November.