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In recent years, scary movies has frequently explored toxic romance with the similar fervor as a cursed dating app. Starting with engineered first encounters (New; Companion) to chronic emotional reliance (Together) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's clear that romantic relationships are primarily blood-stained hell, and a couple venturing to a isolated spot together represents a fresh tier of fright.

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 highly secretive scary film Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been a couple for about a year, which we discover quickly has marked the period Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she seems optimistic about this one. She thinks she understands Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are neither as dotted with warning signs or as oddly idyllic as other recent figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a somewhat slurred-together accent as he describes some oddities about his ancestral forest retreat (like the fact that he has a eerie relative who lives nearby). But their awkwardness levels are complementary. They seem comfortable together.

The director brings in tension through his shot choices, rather than micro-aggressions or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are rarely outright concealed, but they're frequently partially blocked, shown from strange angles, or framed in scenes with a disconcerting amount of empty space. This establishes a trend of confusion that persists as Liz thinks she hears soft noises through the house's air ducts. When she unwinds in the house's posh tub, there's an intensely memorable overlay of the adjacent stream flowing all around her, like she's about to go beyond reality. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a companion she phones when she's by herself at the lodge. Her acquaintance inquires if she did psychedelics; Liz doesn't answer straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – titled after Liz's assumed role as the female in Malcolm's world – appears like it could head in any number of directions, its horror elements blended in a surreal mix. Is it a supernatural tale, a forest killer movie, or just a really bad 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, makes it difficult to discern, both in-movie (so many of the creepiest early moments are instances just blurry or in the periphery of the eye) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the stylistically different murderer thriller Longlegs and the Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, paired with Keeper's elusive and spoiler-averse marketing, could cause the latest release seem to some like a deceptive trick designed to embellish what is, at its core, a pretty simple scary narrative.

Maybe it is that. But part of what renders Perkins' film so invigorating is the way it prioritizes its visceral effect on an audience above a wish to twist that plot into a contemporary relationship parable. As smart as so many current horror movies are, they frequently write toward theme rather than shooting toward instant impact. Consequently, some are starved for innovative visuals, surprising contrasts or a feeling of genuine, strange mystery. Keeper possesses each of these, and Perkins understands just how much to advance those components without permitting the movie to turn into abstract woo-woo excess.

He also seems to know what a strong stabilizing force he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to do the typical virtuoso showcase of a woman on the verge of oblivion. Liz does get alarmed by the weird things that happen around her, and the role is scripted and acted with a certain directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who inexplicably sidesteps inquiring what the hell is happening.) However Maslany provides a second level to her performance in her unguarded moments: a skeptical flick of her eyes in one way or another, the fragility of her more courteous smiles, the shorthand of both her familiarity and speed to irritation with her unseen pal on the phone. Though no particular master clue to her painful history awaits, the figure still feels fully realized.

That's true of the film as a complete piece, too. It's not as rich as Sinners or as narratively ambitious as Weapons, two of 2025's standard-bearers for innovative horror. But when Keeper finishes up, its compact structure seem satisfying, appropriate and unlikely to spawn a sequel. That neatness emphasizes some of its themes in a manner that the more obvious moralizing of other romantic nightmare stories do not always manage: maybe it takes a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to stay so neatly kept.

• Keeper debuts in cinemas on 14 November.