A supremely creepy thriller movie is available to watch this week

The director of Longlegs and The Monkey is back with a deliciously 'dark trip'.

Continuing his incredibly prolific run (Perkins also had The Monkey earlier this year and is already shooting another horror, The Young People, for 2026), the director's latest stars Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black, She-Hulk). She plays Liz, an artist who is about to celebrate a one-year anniversary with her doctor boyfriend Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland, Possessor).

To mark the milestone, Malcolm plans a weekend getaway for the pair at his idyllic, remote cabin in the woods.

Already in her head about the fact that her relationship with Malcolm is her longest romance yet, when Liz gets to the cabin, she begins to experience bizarre phenomena.

As Malcolm tries to put her at ease, Liz questions whether her mind is playing tricks on her or if she is in true danger.

Perkins' last three movies (Gretel & Hansel, Longlegs and The Monkey) saw the filmmaker blend his trademark brooding cinematography, enigmatic fairytale-inspired plots and complex themes with a greater pop sensibility to sizable commercial and critical success.

One wonders how Keeper will fare with audiences and at the box office; it's less obviously mainstream and feels closer to the filmmaker's lesser-seen first two chillers: The Blackcoat's Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House.

Like those films, Keeper is smaller in scale, focusing mainly on just two people in a house. It isn't slow cinema per se, but unlike many modern horrors, it doesn't go out of its way to jolt viewers to attention with jump scares or violence every 10 minutes.

Instead, it unfurls its mystery at its own deliberate pace, so that the audience has the proper time to empathise with its lead characters, while luxuriating in the deliciously off-kilter vibe.

Those seeking a more traditional horror may struggle to get on Keeper's wavelength. Yet, for the devotees of Osgood Perkins and his idiosyncratic style (which we'd count ourselves as), this is the filmmaker 100% uncut.

For the first half of Keeper, the director - along with screenwriter Nick Lepard (this year's banger shark thriller Dangerous Animals) - mines beautifully observed, emotionally rich tension out of common insecurities and fears people can have about embarking on a new romantic relationship.

Am I capable of being in a stable relationship? Is that what I want? Is that what I deserve? Can I trust this new partner? Could I spend the rest of my life with them? - These are all thoughts that Liz has in Keeper, with Tatiana Maslany doing extraordinarily expressive work communicating all this, sometimes with just a look.

Rossif Sutherland (son of Donald, half-brother of Kiefer) is equally strong in an entirely different role. While the audience is placed firmly in Liz's shoes, we view Malcolm the same way she does, as an enigma.

Malcolm says all the right things. Sutherland imbues him with a tangible tenderness. But there is something haunted about the character and performance.

Rossif Sutherland in Keeper

Is he similar to Liz, emotionally scarred by past relationships gone wrong? Or are his intentions for this weekend more sinister? Like Liz, the viewer wants to trust him, but can we?

As Keeper enters into its second half and starts to show its narrative hand, its exploration of a romance becomes less general and more specific to Liz and Malcolm.

In lesser hands, this could be a flaw. But that second half is also when Lepard and Perkins get to uncork some truly mesmerising, nightmarish, haunting imagery, while also delivering a really creative explanation for all the weird goings on in Liz and Malcolm's cabin.

The end result is a film of two halves. Both are very good but different; one is very grounded, the other is much more heightened.

Do they fully coalesce together? I'm not quite sure. But at a time when many "elevated horrors" prioritise over-explaining their metaphors and themes, rather than delivering scares and thrills, Keeper's inventiveness, persistent air of unease, and hard-to-pin-down story should be celebrated.

All in all, it's the type of curious passion project that a director who has made three hits in a row should be allowed to pursue.

Billed as "a dark trip by Osgood Perkins", the movie lives up to that tagline and then some.

Keeper is in cinemas on Friday, 14 November.