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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has frequently delved into toxic romance with the similar fervor as a cursed dating app. From engineered first encounters (New; Companion) to long-term codependence (Together) to the rare happy ending (Love-Struck), it's clear that love affairs are mostly blood-stained hell, and a couple venturing to a secluded spot together represents a fresh tier of terror.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uneasy on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the recently released and much-concealed scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we discover early on has signified the period Liz has bolted from past relationships. Nevertheless, she appears optimistic about this one. She believes she knows Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their initial moments together are not as dotted with red flags nor as oddly idyllic as other current characters in the ill-fated pair genre. Liz has a cautious, dry comic timing, and Malcolm has a slightly mumbled accent as he explains some oddities about his ancestral cabin in the woods (like the reality that he has a creepy relative who lives nearby). But their awkwardness levels are well-matched. They seem comfortable together.

The director introduces tension 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, viewed from odd perspectives, or composed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of headroom. This creates a trend of confusion that persists as Liz believes she hears faint noises through the house's vents. When she unwinds in the house's posh bath, there's an deeply memorable overlay of the nearby stream rushing all around her, like she's about to go beyond space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she informs a friend she phones when she's left alone at the lodge. Her acquaintance inquires if she did mushrooms; Liz doesn't answer directly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's assumed role as the female in Malcolm's life – seems like it could head in any number of paths, its horror elements mixed together in a surreal mix. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a terrible experience? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a prolific run for the past 18 months with an additional film due out next year, complicates efforts to tell, both within the story (so many of the creepiest early moments are instances just out of focus or in the corner of the vision) and outside the narrative; his last two films were the tonally distinct murderer thriller Longlegs and the fate-based horror comedy The Monkey. This eclecticism, combined with Keeper's mysterious and secretive ad campaign, could make the latest release seem to some like a deceptive trick intended to dress up what is, at its core, a pretty simple horror story.

Perhaps it's exactly that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it emphasizes its visceral effect on an audience above a desire to bend that plot into a contemporary love allegory. As smart as so many contemporary horror movies are, they often script toward message instead of shooting toward immediacy. As a result, some are lacking original imagery, surprising juxtapositions or a feeling of genuine, uncanny enigma. Keeper has all of this, and Perkins knows just how far to advance those components without permitting the movie to turn into vague mystical excess.

The director also appears to recognize what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the typical virtuoso demo reel of a female on the verge of doom. Liz becomes freaked out by the strange occurrences that take place around her, and the role is scripted and acted with a particular straightforwardness. (She's not one of those horror heroines who mysteriously avoids asking what the heck is happening.) Yet Maslany provides a second level to her performance in her unprotected moments: a cynical glance of her eyes in one direction or another, the fragility of her more polite smiles, the shorthand of both her familiarity and speed to annoyance with her off-screen friend on the phone. Though no specific skeleton key to her painful history awaits, the character still feels fully realized.

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 concludes, its tight confines feel gratifying, correct and unlikely to spawn a follow-up. That neatness drives home some of its themes in a way that the more obvious moralizing of other romantic nightmare tales don't always achieve: perhaps it takes a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to remain so perfectly contained.

• The film arrives in cinemas on 14 November.