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In recent years, horror cinema has frequently delved into unhealthy relationships with the similar fervor as a cursed dating app. Starting with manipulated meet-cutes (New; Companion) to chronic emotional reliance (Together) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's clear that love affairs are primarily blood-stained hell, and a pair traveling to a secluded spot together signifies a fresh tier of terror.

So it's not surprising when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uncomfortable on her weekend away with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) early on in the new and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for approximately twelve months, which we learn quickly has signified the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she seems optimistic about this one. She believes she understands Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are neither as filled with red flags nor as oddly perfect as other current figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, deadpan comic timing, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together accent as he describes some oddities about his family-owned forest retreat (like the reality that he has a creepy relative who lives close by). But their social discomfort are complementary. They seem comfortable together.

Osgood Perkins introduces tension through his camera work, instead of micro-aggressions or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's expressions are rarely outright concealed, but they're frequently somewhat blocked, viewed from odd angles, or composed in shots with a unsettling amount of headroom. This establishes a trend of confusion that persists as Liz believes she hears faint noises through the house's air ducts. When she unwinds in the house's luxurious bath, there's an intensely unforgettable overlay of the nearby river rushing all around her, as if she's about to go beyond reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a friend she calls when she's left alone at the lodge. Her friend asks if she actually took psychedelics; Liz avoids responding straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed status as the woman in Malcolm's world – appears like it could head in any number of directions, its frightening components blended in a surreal jumble. Is it a supernatural tale, a forest killer movie, or just a really bad trip? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a prolific streak for the past 18 months with an additional film scheduled next year, complicates efforts to discern, both within the story (so many of the creepiest initial scenes are instances just blurry or in the periphery of the vision) and outside the narrative; his previous movies were the stylistically different serial-killer freakout Longlegs and the fate-based scary humor The Monkey. This eclecticism, combined with Keeper's elusive and spoiler-averse marketing, could make the latest release seem to some like a deceptive trick intended to dress up what is, fundamentally, a pretty simple horror story.

Maybe it is that. But one aspect of what makes Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it emphasizes its physical impact on an audience over a desire to twist that story into a modern love allegory. As smart as so many current horror movies are, they often write for theme instead of shooting for instant impact. As a result, some are starved for innovative visuals, unexpected juxtapositions or a sense of authentic, strange enigma. Keeper has each of these, and Perkins understands just how far to push those elements without allowing the movie to turn into abstract woo-woo self-indulgence.

He also seems to know what a powerful stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the usual virtuoso demo reel of a female on the brink of doom. Liz becomes freaked out by the weird things that take place around her, and the character is scripted and acted with a particular directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who inexplicably avoids inquiring what the heck is going on.) Yet Maslany delivers a second level to her acting in her unguarded times: a cynical glance of her gaze in one direction or another, the fragility of her more courteous smiles, the shorthand of both her closeness and speed to annoyance with her unseen friend on the call. Though no particular 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 standard-bearers for original horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its compact structure seem satisfying, correct and unlikely to spawn a sequel. That tidiness emphasizes some of its themes in a way that the more overt messaging of other romantic nightmare stories don't always achieve: maybe it requires a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to remain so perfectly contained.

• The film arrives in cinemas on 14 November.