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Over the past few seasons, scary movies has frequently delved into unhealthy relationships with the same fervor as a doomed dating app. From manipulated meet-cutes (New; Partner) to long-term codependence (United) to the occasional success story (Heart Eyes), it's clear that romantic relationships are primarily gory nightmares, and a couple traveling to a secluded location together signifies a fresh tier of terror.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) starts to feel uneasy on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the new and much-concealed horror movie Keeper. Liz and Malcolm have been together for about a year, which we learn early on has marked the time Liz has bolted from past relationships. Still, she appears optimistic about this one. She believes she understands Malcolm pretty well, and their initial moments together are neither as filled with warning signs nor as suspiciously perfect as other recent figures in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, dry sense of humor, and Malcolm has a slightly mumbled way of speaking as he explains some peculiarities about his ancestral forest retreat (like the fact that he has a creepy relative who lives close by). But their awkwardness levels are well-matched. They seem at ease together.

Osgood Perkins introduces tension through his shot choices, instead of subtle hostilities or past events.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom outright hidden, but they're frequently partially blocked, shown from strange perspectives, or composed in shots with a disconcerting amount of headroom. This establishes a trend of disorientation that continues as Liz believes she hears soft sounds through the house's air ducts. When she unwinds in the house's posh tub, there's an deeply unforgettable overlay of the adjacent river flowing all around her, as if she's about to go beyond space and time. "I feel like I took mushrooms," she tells a companion she phones when she's by herself at the cabin. Her acquaintance inquires if she did psychedelics; Liz doesn't answer straightforwardly.

Initially, Keeper – titled after Liz's assumed role as the woman in Malcolm's life – appears like it could head in any number of directions, its frightening components blended in a dreamlike mix. 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 prolific streak for the past 18 months with another movie scheduled next year, complicates efforts to tell, both within the story (so many of the creepiest initial scenes are moments just blurry or in the corner of the vision) and extra-textually; his previous movies were the stylistically different serial-killer thriller Longlegs and the fate-based horror comedy The Monkey. This eclecticism, paired with Keeper's mysterious and secretive marketing, could make the latest release seem to some like a shell game designed to dress up what is, at its core, a fairly straightforward scary narrative.

Maybe it is exactly that. But part of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it prioritizes its physical impact on an audience over a wish to twist that story into a contemporary love allegory. As clever as so many contemporary horror movies are, they often script for message instead of filming toward instant impact. As a result, some are starved for original imagery, unexpected juxtapositions or a sense of authentic, strange mystery. Keeper has all of this, and Perkins knows just how far to push those elements without allowing the movie to become abstract mystical excess.

The director also appears to recognize what a strong grounding element he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to perform the typical virtuoso demo reel of a woman on the brink of oblivion. Liz becomes freaked out by the strange occurrences 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 provides a second level to her performance in her unguarded times: a skeptical glance of her gaze in one way or another, the tenuousness of her more courteous smiles, the shorthand of both her familiarity and quickness to annoyance with her unseen friend on the call. Though no particular skeleton key to her painful history awaits, the character still seems complete.

That's true of the movie as a whole, 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 concludes, its tight confines seem satisfying, appropriate and unlikely to spawn a follow-up. That neatness emphasizes some of its ideas in a way that the more overt messaging of other romantic nightmare stories do not always manage: maybe it takes a fable-like horror for the messy business of relationships to stay so neatly kept.

• The film debuts in cinemas on 14 November.