Osgood Perkins’ Relationship Horror is More or Less a Keeper (2025)

Title: Keeper

First Non-Festival Release: November 13, 2025 (Theatrical Release)

Director: Osgood Perkins

Writer: Nick Lepard

Runtime: 99 Minutes

Starring: Tatiana Maslany, Rossif Sutherland, Eden Weiss

Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here

Have you ever felt a relationship ending and you’re at a loss for where to go next? Emotions overflowing, contradicting, heightened. The death rattle sounds long before the cords are cut, typically.

Liz (Tatiana Maslany) is facing a similar dilemma with her boyfriend, Malcom (Rossif Sutherland). Traveling to his family cabin in the woods, Liz finds his mental distance troubling and, thanks to her friend Maggie (Tess Degenstein), she is now starting to think she might be the other woman in his life. These thoughts cease when stranger things start to happen throughout the weekend. Initially minor, Liz finds herself struggling to justify staying when the red flags keep piling on top of the other. Unfortunately for Liz, some force within the forest is determined to keep her there forever.

An eerie but otherwise empty relationship horror, Keeper stuns with its central performance and beautiful imagery while spinning around its story. 

Its central mystery is both compelling and relatable, as people fall in and out of love all the time. Liz’s waffling and inability to read the signs that something far more sinister is going on than a breakup confrontation allows the more supernatural elements to take shape. Director Osgood Perkins and writer Nick Lepard keep Liz restless so she can overthink every possibility about Malcolm ending their relationship while ignoring the very real danger she actually faces. This irony drives the plot, as even at her most paranoid Liz doesn’t consider Malcolm to be lethal.

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Liz’s journey to accepting her fate and that of her relationship is equal parts heartbreaking and frustrating while still offering some beacon of hope. Keeper is all about the subjugation, commodification, and brutalization of women and the ancient powers that hide their fates. Malcolm and his brother’s reign of terror started through their fear, envy, and apathy towards a witch living on their father’s property. Their decision to take her autonomy so casually and discard it even more so sums up the entire problem of heterosexual presenting relationships.

Haunted by the echoes of their voices and specters, Liz faces the same impossible situation these women faced years ago. In fact, it’s Liz’s relationship with the remnants of the women taken in that forest that makes Keeper engaging. It works because Liz and the women are not allies or foes. This friction furthers Liz’s isolation until she accepts her new fate.  By doing so, Liz regains her power against a man whose regret for trying to hurt her amounts to labored sighing and furrowing his brow. Keeper reminds us that the future lies in women taking back the power stolen from them.

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While the meat behind the story is there, Keeper stumbles around with how to best tell it. The pacing is absolutely killer here, with Perkins unsure how to best handle the start-stop action. Lulls are punctuated with bizarre imagery, loud screams, and hallucinatory blurs, which only works in the film’s second act, its strongest. As if suspended in honey, the slowed down horror of Keeper goes down smooth, which does detract from its more upsetting relationship drama.

Perkins relies heavily on his signature hazy, atmospheric-dense approach to horror which pays off unevenly in Keeper. Draped in cool blues and muted tones, the creeping chill of Keeper unnerves more than it straight up scares. Confidently creating tension through intentional and claustrophobic framing, Perkins glides through his folk horror tale while terrorizing audiences with the emptiness and isolation as Liz is stalked. Once he gets to the third act, Keeper explodes in weirdness that threatens to elevate and betray the first hour. It’s a mixed bag but when it works, it works.

When all else fails, Maslany steers the ship with her powerhouse performance. In the hands of a less capable performer, Liz would be a more one-note character. Not Maslany. Liz is fully realized, even if you don’t like the person you see. Caught between her delusional love for Malcolm and isolated in nearly every sense of the word, Maslany makes Liz’s fear feel real by her insistence of minimization. Packing every ounce of self-sabotaging naivety into her routine of justifying every weird thing her man does or doesn’t do, Maslany makes Liz a much more dynamic character through her full-throated denial. Maslany plays neither coy nor battle-ready, allowing Liz to transform over the weekend throughout her ordeal.

Dreamy, languid, and all-together perplexing, Keeper is a mind fuck that is bound to divide audiences. Drenched in atmosphere, and some of the most beautiful horror shots of the year, Keeper unsettles, making it easy to fall in love with Maslany’s chameleon-esque performance. While it succeeds in vibes and its incredible leading performance, Keeper crumbles under the weight of its messy story. It’s impossible to deny that Perkins has crafted an impressive and diverse filmography in just ten years and Keeper is another slick addition to the list. In the end, the only person that can decide if Perkins’ latest is a Keeper or not is you.

Overall Score? 6/10