Keeper Review: When Love Goes Bad

Before last year, Osgood Perkins was already a respectable, albeit divisive, horror filmmaker, but when Longlegs hit theaters in July of 2024, Perkins became one of the biggest names in the genre. His stock only grew with his next big-screen effort, the splatstick horror comedy The Monkey (which I admittedly only came to appreciate on my second watch), so like most genre fans, I’ve been dying to see his new movie, Keeper. I wasn’t sure what to expect given Perkins’s nearly 180-degree tonal shift with The Monkey, but I knew one thing–I couldn’t wait to find out.

Keeper was directed by Osgood Perkins, and it stars Tatiana Maslany and Rossif Sutherland. In the film, Malcolm and his girlfriend Liz travel to his secluded cabin to celebrate their one-year anniversary. They’re both excited about the time they’ll get to spend together, but not long after they arrive, Liz realizes something isn’t quite right with the place. She experiences surreal nightmares both asleep and awake, and it looks like someone, or something, is stalking the premises.

As you might be able to guess from that plot synopsis, Keeper relies heavily on its two lead characters. If they don’t work, the movie won’t work, and unfortunately, they’re a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, Rossif Sutherland is merely adequate as Malcolm. You never feel like he’s just an actor reading lines, but nothing about the guy is particularly memorable. He almost seems more like a walking plot point than a real person, so if he had to carry this film by himself, it would likely crash and burn.

Thankfully though, Keeper doesn’t rest entirely on his shoulders. In fact, it’s not even a 50/50 split. This is Liz’s story, and Tatiana Maslany is excellent in the role. Right from the get-go, she seems like an incredibly fun person to hang out with, so you can’t help but want to spend more time with her. Then, when she’s asked to convey deeper emotions like fear and disillusionment, the woman totally knocks it out of the park. Maslany simply gives a great performance all around, so she single-handedly keeps this movie afloat even when it veers dangerously close to sinking.

And that happens several times, especially in the first forty-five minutes. In typical Osgood Perkins fashion, Keeper is a very slow burn, so for most of the film’s runtime, we don’t even know what’s going on here. Up until the final act, we just get vague hints and brief glimpses at the terrors that reside in this cabin, and those scares are pretty inconsistent.

There are plenty of times when the atmosphere is on point and the surreal imagery makes you whisper “what the hell” (or maybe something even more explicit) under your breath, but there are just as many scenes where Perkins misses the mark. It even seems at times that he’s using the score to artificially manufacture an atmosphere that’s just not there at the moment, and coming from a slow-burn master, I found that quite surprising.

But once we hit the forty-five minute mark, Keeper rights the ship. The horror smooths out the wrinkles that threatened to derail the entire experience, and from then on, it’s all smooth sailing. Don’t get me wrong, the narrative doesn’t shift dramatically at this point, nor does Perkins start pulling back the curtain yet. He keeps up his “bits and pieces” approach to terror for a good while longer, but for some reason, it simply works much better from here on out.

I was completely locked in until I finally learned the truth about this place, and when that revelation came, it did not disappoint. Granted, I’d be lying if I said it was terribly original, but it’s executed so well I didn’t care. Even Rossif Sutherland steps up his game a bit, and the imagery in this last act is genuinely hair-raising. This final burst of horror is worth the long wait with all its ups and downs, so when the credits began to roll, I was a happy man.

All that being said, I don’t want you to leave with the wrong idea. Keeper is an entertaining and effective horror movie, but it’s not just a hollow scarefest. There’s some thematic substance here as well, and unsurprisingly given the setup, it’s an indictment of the warped Andrew Tate mindset that often passes for masculinity in our culture. This entire story is essentially an allegory for the way many men today view women as objects they can use and abuse for their own selfish pleasure and then toss to the curb when they no longer serve their purpose.

It’s a message I as a man wholeheartedly endorse, so if you’re on the prowl for some good new horror, I recommend that you give Keeper a shot. Sure, the film is uneven at times, so it’s not Osgood Perkins’s best work, but it’s definitely worth a watch. It further cements Perkins as one of the best filmmakers in the genre today, so I already can’t wait to see his next movie, *The Young People*.