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Over the past few seasons, horror cinema has often delved into unhealthy relationships with the similar intensity as a doomed dating app. Starting with engineered first encounters (New; Companion) to long-term codependence (Together) to the rare happy ending (Heart Eyes), it's evident that romantic relationships are primarily blood-stained hell, and a pair traveling to a secluded location together represents a fresh tier of fright.

Thus it's no shock when Liz (Tatiana Maslany) begins to feel uncomfortable on her short vacation with Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) at the beginning in the recently released and highly secretive 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 knows Malcolm quite thoroughly, and their early scenes together are neither as dotted with red flags nor as suspiciously perfect as other current characters in the doomed-couple genre. Liz has a cautious, deadpan sense of humor, and Malcolm has a slightly mumbled way of speaking as he explains some oddities about his ancestral forest retreat (like the fact that he has a eerie cousin who lives nearby). But their awkwardness levels are complementary. They appear comfortable together.

Osgood Perkins introduces tension through his camera work, instead of subtle hostilities or backstory.

Liz and Malcolm's faces are seldom outright hidden, but they're often partially obscured, viewed from odd angles, or framed in shots with a disconcerting amount of headroom. This creates a pattern 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 bath, there's an intensely memorable overlay of the adjacent 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 by herself at the cabin. Her acquaintance inquires if she did psychedelics; Liz doesn't answer directly.

Initially, Keeper – named for Liz's supposed status as the female in Malcolm's world – appears like it could go in any number of paths, its horror elements blended in a surreal jumble. Is it a supernatural tale, a slasher-in-the-woods movie, or just a really bad trip? Perkins, a master of scares who has been on a productive 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 early moments 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 Final Destination-ish horror comedy The Monkey. This diversity, combined with Keeper's mysterious and spoiler-averse marketing, could make the latest release feel to some like a shell game designed to dress up what is, at its core, a fairly straightforward horror story.

Maybe it is exactly that. But one aspect of what renders Perkins' film so refreshing is the manner it prioritizes its physical impact on an audience above a wish to twist that story into a modern relationship parable. As smart as so many contemporary horror movies are, they often write for theme instead of shooting for instant impact. Consequently, some are lacking innovative visuals, unexpected juxtapositions or a sense of genuine, uncanny mystery. Keeper possesses all of this, and Perkins understands just how much to advance those components without permitting the movie to turn into abstract mystical excess.

The director also appears to recognize what a powerful grounding element he has in Maslany, who doesn't need to do the usual virtuoso showcase of a woman on the brink of doom. Liz becomes freaked out by the strange occurrences that happen around her, and the character is written and acted with a certain directness. (She's not one of those scary movie leads who mysteriously sidesteps asking what the hell is going on.) However Maslany provides a additional layer to her acting in her unprotected times: a cynical glance of her eyes in one way or another, the fragility of her more courteous grins, the abbreviated of both her familiarity and speed to annoyance with her off-screen pal on the call. Though no particular skeleton key to her traumatic past awaits, the character still feels complete.

That's true of the film as a complete piece, too. It's not as rich as Sinners nor as plot-daring as Weapons, two of 2025's standard-bearers for original horror. But when Keeper concludes, its compact structure seem satisfying, correct and improbable to spawn a follow-up. That tidiness emphasizes some of its ideas in a way that the more obvious messaging of other dating-hell tales do not always achieve: maybe it takes a mythical horror for the messy business of relationships to stay so neatly kept.

• Keeper arrives in cinemas on 14 November.