A couple celebrating their first anniversary at an isolated cabin in the woods are in for the usual—and some memorably unusual—scares in Keeper, the latest horror film from Longlegs and The Monkey director Osgood Perkins. In purely visual terms, this might be Perkins most accomplished film yet, with arresting cinematography from Jeremy Cox and striking monster design that gets under your skin and leaves a lasting impression long after the credits have rolled.
But in story terms, Keeper falls short. The screenplay from Nick Lepard (Dangerous Animals) is both maddeningly ambiguous and over-expository, stopping the narrative dead in its tracks for lengthy explanations while leaving key questions unanswered. Audiences willing to sever expectations of a sensible story will find a lot to like here, but for most others this one is destined to underwhelm.
Keeper stars Tatiana Maslany and Rossif Sutherland as Elizabeth and Malcolm, the couple heading out of the city for a weekend in the woods. Malcolm is a doctor from the well-off Westbridge family that owns the rural land, and almost immediately his boorish cousin Darren (Birkett Turton) shows up on their doorstep with his latest date Minka (Eden Weiss), an Eastern European model who doesn’t speak a word of English.
Because Keeper opens with a montage of other women in distressing situations, and Elizabeth starts experiencing supernatural phenomena as soon as she gets to the cabin, we immediately key in to what’s going on: these women have been murdered—perhaps by Malcolm or Darren—and now their ghosts are haunting the isolated property.
Or something like that. The actual explanation for what is happening is a lot more elaborate, but don’t worry: after 70 minutes of creepy encounters, bizarre sightings, and a slowly increasing sense of dread that reaches an apex, Keeper will grind to a sudden halt for 10 minutes of rote exposition. And after learning the true nature of what’s going on, which lacks any kind of internal logic, we wish the movie had kept its secrets.
But even after the climactic revelations, the film maintains a genuine sense of terror. While we get tantalizing glimpses of the supernatural phenomena at the film’s core throughout the narrative, a bravura 10-minute finale delivers the full spectacle, bringing the film’s eerie, otherworldly tension to a thrilling and unforgettable peak. If you’ve made it this far into the movie, the images Perkins conjures here will be unforgettable; taken on its own, the climax of Keeper is the most terrifying 10 minutes you’ll spend in a cinema this year.
That should be enough to recommend Keeper to horror audiences, at least, but there’s one key aspect that keeps the movie from working as it should. It all has to do with a chocolate cake seen near the beginning of the movie. Minka warns Elizabeth from eating it, Elizabeth declines to have a bite—saying she hates chocolate—but she tastes it anyway after only mild insistence.
But the troubling part comes later that night, when Elizabeth walks into the kitchen as if possessed and consumes the entire cake, despite what she and the audience can plainly see as very good reasons not to do so. And despite Maslany’s committed performance in the lead, it’s at this point that we sever our relationship with her character; Keeper only works if Elizabeth is an innocent victim, but we know far too early that she has been compromised. As she is haunted by supernatural phenomena throughout the rest of the movie, we’re never able to develop an attachment to the character that would allow us to truly invest in her fate.
While Keeper struggles with a muddled narrative and exposition that undercuts suspense, Perkins’ command of visual storytelling ensures the film leaves a strong impression. From the stark cinematography in rural Canada to the unnerving monster designs, the horror here is tangible and often terrifying. And Maslany still commands in the lead, even if narrative missteps make it hard to fully invest in her character.
For audiences willing to embrace ambiguity and savor a purely sensory horror experience, Keeper offers memorable chills and a bravura finale that will linger long after leaving the cinema. It may not fully cohere as a story, but it succeeds as a showcase of visual horror, supernatural tension, and pure cinematic dread.
