I generally subscribe to the idea that great movies, really great ones, can’t be ruined with spoilers. You could tell me every single detail of my favourites – Blue Velvet, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The People Under The Stairs, May, Empire Records, and all the rest – and not actually “spoil” a thing about them. They all hold up after decades and dozens of repeat viewings even though I can recite many of them by heart.
Then there are movies that sit on a shelf below those. Not truly great but still good and worthy of going to the mat for. Those movies – especially if they’re horror movies – tend to hinge rather a lot on a twist or mystery to be solved, or at least some kind of surprise. Going into a given movie, I’m never sure which one it’ll be. That’s why – especially lately – I’ve been down on most movie trailers which are highly likely to ruin at least one potential surprise that would enhance my enjoyment of that film. If I’m already sold on a movie – whether it’s by the log line, a casting decision or, most often, the director or writer – I’m probably not clicking that trailer.
So there’s a bunch of articles out there that say something along the lines of, “Osgood Perkins’ Keeper is not what you’re expecting.” At this point, given Oz’s output over the last 18 months – The Monkey and Longlegs – and frankly even longer than that, I had no expectations for Keeper at all. He’s brought to life such a wide breadth of stories that, after a marketing campaign that kept Keeper’s secrets pretty close to its chest, I had no idea what I was in for. Still, I left the theatre feeling a little deflated.
Keeper tackles a familiar-seeming story of a couple, early in their relationship, taking their first real trip together to – wait for it – a cabin in the woods. Liz (Tatiana Maslany) is a city girl and snarky artist who isn’t particularly attuned to the outdoor life. Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) is a soft-spoken physician who immediately gives off all sorts of red flags. They’re leaving New York City for Malcolm’s modernist cabin, all sharp angles and huge windows with no coverings on them. Maybe it’s me, but I immediately picked up on a vibe that these two people don’t actually like each other all that much, even as they profusely profess their love and have been dating for about a year. Lots of folk horror taps into this vibe but, until the latter half of the film when the “what the fuck is going on here” is (sort of) explained, the lack of palpable or visible chemistry between Malcolm and Liz isn’t really explored.
In the cabin, the couple go through the motions of a romantic weekend, including the introduction of a sinister chocolate cake, ostensibly left there by the cabin’s caretaker. Malcolm insists that Liz try a piece despite her gentle and then increasingly forceful protestations and her dislike of chocolate. You’d think that Malcolm not trying a bite might be significant (spoiler: it is!) but like everything weird in Keeper, it’s not addressed until way later than you’d expect. In bursts Malcolm’s acerbic, offputting cousin Darren (Birkett Turton) who insinuates himself and his barely-a-character model girlfriend into the couples’ weekend and Liz and Malcolm just let it happen with no real pushback. That’s a theme of Keeper, that everything seems to just occur while our heroes react and, like clockwork, almost always too late. Before long, Liz is left alone in the cabin as Malcolm tends to a patient, and she begins experiencing hallucinatory visions and the kind of jump scares that make me more angry than scared, because they’re unearned and fake before -maybe – turning into something of real concern.
Keeper feels like a couple of decent performances, mostly-cheap scares, and decent but confusing VFX in search of a story. That’s never been a problem for Oz Perkins as he’s, up to now, always managed to have a clever way of upending tropes or expectations. And that cleverness was always in service of a substantial story. Not so with Keeper, which resembles nothing so much as a car spinning its wheels in a vain attempt to achieve purchase. Maslany and Sutherland are both very capable of carrying a film, and they do their best here. But even their substantial talents fall short. I think what frustrates me the most about Keeper is that everyone involved, from Maslany and Sutherland to Perkins and Lepard, are capable of much better. I adore Maslany’s many turns in Orphan Black, and Sutherland – son of the late Canadian hero Donald – is acting royalty. Perkins just dropped two of the most unique – both from each other and from everything else happening in horror right now – projects of the last couple of years with Longlegs and The Monkey. Even Lepard penned the sharktastic Dangerous Animals which was a refreshing return to form for Sean Byrne and one of the most fun movies I watched in 2025. So how does combining all this talent in front of and behind the camera produce something that feels so trite and amateurish?
Maybe it’s yet another example of being betrayed by expectations. Not everything can be a winner. And maybe Keeper’s particular brand of folk horror will connect more with other audiences than it did with me. I maintain that there’s a good – maybe great – movie in Keeper that starts about 45 minutes into this version and ends about 20 minutes later. Personally, though, I’ll be keeping out of the woods and looking for another project to scratch my Oz itch.
Osgood Perkins’ Keeper is currently in theatres everywhere from NEON.
