Ever since the cryptic marketing campaign for Osgood Perkins’ “Longlegs” helped make that film a surprise summer hit, the filmmaker’s new home at Neon has treated Perkins’ subsequent releases with as much ballyhoo as they can muster. Calling Perkins the new William Castle would be inaccurate, yet the marketing surrounding his post-“Longlegs” films this year have included concepts in the tradition of the horror ballyhoo master. After stunts like a bus full of “dead cheerleaders” being driven around Hollywood were used to promote this past February’s “The Monkey,” Neon and Perkins dialed things way back with “Keeper.” Instead of the usual press and media rollout, they’ve chosen to keep the majority of the movie wrapped in near-total secrecy, implying that the horrors which lurk within are too shocking or surprising to be revealed early.
Whether this approach will intrigue or repel audiences remains to be seen. From my perspective, this obfuscation doesn’t add to the film itself; it actually might detract from it a bit, as it appears to promise an M. Night Shyamalan-type of film with an earth-shaking twist, which “Keeper” isn’t trying to be. Yet Perkins has made a highly intriguing layer cake of a movie, one which keeps shifting subgenres the deeper you get into it. While this makes for an unnerving and at times frustrating first watch, Perkins ultimately delivers answers for all the questions the film raises. As such, “Keeper” becomes the most ambitious film of Perkins’ career, one which proves the director’s abilities are still growing as his status as one of the modern era’s masters of horror becomes further cemented.
Perkins uses the simple setup of Keeper to veer off in a variety of directions
One of the most attractive qualities of the horror movie in general is its penchant for simple premises that lead to crazier, wilder things. “Keeper” is essentially Perkins’ “cabin in the woods” movie a la “The Evil Dead” or “The Cabin in the Woods,” two films with simple setups that become increasingly horrific and insane, which Perkins’ movie also does. After a foreshadowing montage of women throughout time in relationships who then encounter something horrific (and, presumably, deadly), we meet Liz (Tatiana Maslany) and Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland). They’re a couple at a stage in their relationship where things are either going to end soon or move to the next level, and in the hopes of the latter happening, Malcolm has convinced Liz to accompany him to his family’s home in a remote (as in reserved for the elite) area of a nearby wood.
In the midst of Malcolm trying hard to keep Liz happy, several unnerving things happen. Malcolm’s finance bro brother, Darren (Birkett Turton) shows up at the house next door with a trophy girlfriend in tow, Minka (Eden Weiss). Both Darren and Malcolm insist on Liz trying a piece of a cake which has supposedly been baked by the area’s caretaker. Then Malcolm is called away suddenly to attend a patient of his at the hospital, leaving Liz alone in the cabin, at which point the film switches gears into a Polanski-esque paranoia thriller. From there, Perkins guides “Keeper” through a variety of subgenres including folk horror, creature feature, a serial killer thriller (with a touch of the vampire myth) and fairy tale horror. Rather than being anthological, these shifts make “Keeper” the cinematic equivalent of a Matryoshka doll, with something new (but still the same) around every corner.
Keeper holds back its answers for a frustratingly long time
However, there’s a flip side to this game of constantly peeling away the onion that “Keeper” plays, and that’s the fact that Perkins and writer Nick Lepard hold back answers to what exactly is going on in the film for a remarkably long time. It’s absolutely fortunate that Maslany and Sutherland are highly watchable actors, as they help the film through these rough patches. Sutherland in particular is a bit of a revelation for those who haven’t seen much of his work, the majority of which have been Canadian productions (where “Keeper” was shot due to the strikes of 2023); he’s got a sonorous, hypnotic vocal delivery which is reminiscent of Michael Shannon. Maslany’s prowess won’t come as much surprise to those who’ve seen her work in “Orphan Black,” “She-Hulk,” and Perkins’ “The Monkey,” but that doesn’t diminish how good she is here. The role of Liz plays to all of her strengths and her range as a performer.
So while there’s certainly no lack of intrigue to the film, it does feel like Perkins plays keep-away with the truth for too long. The choice is a trade-off, for once the other shoe finally drops, the film kicks into high gear, something which might have proved exhausting if the movie was already at a heightened level for a stretch before that happens. The good news is that this extended length of track the film lays before it reaches its first big drop will likely play better on a second viewing, allowing all of the clues and puzzle pieces that the filmmakers lay out to fill out the picture. Such is the price of an ambitious narrative.
Keeper is Perkins’ most visually rich film to date
In addition to Maslany and Sutherland’s performances holding the screen is the fact that Perkins and his collaborators have made “Keeper” the director’s most visually rich film to date. Perkins’ films have always been handsome, to be sure, with even the garish “The Monkey” having a grotesque beauty to it. Yet “Keeper” mirrors its unfolding mystery structure visually, revealing more aspects to the film aesthetically along with narratively. The house that production designer Danny Vermette found for the film’s central location is already bizarre before anything spooky happens, and cinematographer Jeremy Cox makes the most of creating intensely claustrophobic compositions with it. There’s a deliciously upsetting lack of geography in the film that’s maintained throughout; just like Liz, you’re never quite sure where you are, where you’ve just been, or where you might escape to.
The real coup de grâce in the film’s visual arsenal is its creature design, which is some of the most inventive seen in a mainstream western horror movie in a while. Without giving away who and what these creatures are, it’s suffice to say that they fit into the movie’s thematic threads snugly, and their appearance is of a piece with the movie’s relationship to folk horror and fairy tale horror; there’s something about them which feels akin to the work of Neil Jordan (“The Company of Wolves”) and Ken Russell (“Altered States”). They also resemble the work of Junji Ito and are reminiscent of the monsters seen in the “Silent Hill” video games. In short, they’re worth the price of admission, and make for a fantastic bloody cherry on top of Perkins’ diseased cake.
Perkins makes Keeper a bold addition to horror’s look at relationships
Despite its beasties, “Keeper” is not a monster movie, but is instead a scathing look at an idea inherent in human relationships, particularly romantic ones. That idea is referenced in the film’s title, a word which is often used as a blasé descriptor for someone who seems to have value as a romantic partner. Whether it’s that word or calling someone a “catch” or the like, we do have a disturbing way of reducing people from individuals to objects of romantic conquest, and it’s this aberration inherent in our language and our society which Perkins is stabbing at. In extrapolating the anxieties and unresolved tensions of dating and relationships, Perkins has made a film which feels like a companion piece to movies like Andrzej Žulawski’s “Possession,” Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!,” and even Michael Shanks’ “Together” from earlier this year. This means that “Keeper” is either a great date night movie or a horrible one, depending on your marital status, and this is something which feels like a byproduct of Perkins’ mischievous nature.
What’s especially exciting about “Keeper” is that it confirms Perkins’ penchant for following his own gleefully perverse muse. The filmmaker has been criticized online recently for the bizarre charge of making too many movies at once, but this criticism doesn’t hold much water when his films are so demonstrably different from one another. This movie put next to “Longlegs” and “The Monkey” alone prove that he’s not some assembly line or cookie cutter guy. For whatever reason, the man seems energized creatively at the moment, and “Keeper” proves that he’s got a lot more gas in the tank.
/Film Rating: 8 out of 10
“Keeper” opens in theaters on November 14, 2025.
