Keeper finds Oz Perkins splitting the difference between the chilly occult dread of Longlegs and the goofy pulp of his Stephen King riff The Monkey. The result is a winking slow burn that slips, scene by scene, into gawky madness. It is more confident than The Monkey, less severe than Longlegs, and most alive when it trusts atmosphere over exposition.
Liz, played by Tatiana Maslany, heads to the woods with her boyfriend Malcolm, played by Rossif Sutherland, for a quiet weekend at his family cabin. The trip is a first for them as a couple. Context sketches a busy city life and a partner who is always on call. Early red flags arrive as Liz glimpses visions of tormented women and meets Malcolm’s needling cousin Darren, played by Birkett Turton, whose rudeness reads as a warning. Then Malcolm is summoned back to the city for work, and the house begins to talk.
Perkins shoots the single location with purpose. The cabin feels endless, a maze of shadowed hallways, crawl spaces, and dead ends. You feel the walls closing around Liz’s steps. The film stretches time without turning slack, and Maslany carries the tension with small calibrations of breath and posture. When the movie works, it works because you are alone with her, waiting for the next creak.
As the secrets surface, the story tips into pulp. Liz finds threads that suggest she is not Malcolm’s first guest here. The reveal of alien looking entities that trade longevity for sacrifice is pitched halfway between sick joke and midnight movie. The creatures are deliberately goofy, almost rubbery in their menace, and Perkins leans into the dissonance. For once he seems happy to play inside pure genre, which puts him closer in spirit to M. Night Shyamalan than to his own earlier, more austere mode.
The tradeoff is that Keeper cannot stop explaining itself. Perkins has a habit of working hard to get to the finish line, and the lore here is over clarified. Motives are itemized, rules are named, and the mystery thins as the dialogue thickens. The twist is easy to spot, and the inevitable carnage lands more as confirmation than surprise. I admired the ending’s willingness to be silly, though I can imagine a fair share of eye rolls.
Even with the clunky reveals, there is craft to spare. The sound design keeps the cabin alive. The camera creeps instead of pounces. Blood is withheld until it matters. Perkins keeps the tone dry and a little smirking, which lets the occasional outrageous beat register as a choice rather than a mistake. It feels like a filmmaker testing where his seriousness ends and his showmanship begins.
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Neon has clearly bought into this phase of Perkins’ career, with Keeper arriving on the heels of The Monkey and with The Young People on deck. This one sits in the middle of that run. It is not as disciplined as it could be, yet it is shot with assurance and it lets Maslany work in a key that suits her. As a cabin chiller with a cracked sense of humor, it does enough.
Score: 6/10
Keeper (2025)
- Cast: Tatiana Maslany, Rossif Sutherland, Birkett Turton
- Director: Oz Perkins
- Genre: Horror, Mystery
- Runtime: 99 minutes
- Rated: R
- Release Date: November 14, 2025
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