Keeper Review: Convoluted Cabin Fever Thriller is a Misfire for Osgood Perkins
The second film this year from the Longlegs director marks the end of a hot streak
by Alex Secilmis 17 November 2025
© NEON
It’s been a busy year for relationship horror. From Companion to Together, 2025 has mined straight romance for all its potential terror. Now, forgoing any AI robot drama or body horror embellishments, Osgood Perkins’ Keeper seemingly strips the narrative down with a deceptively simple premise: a couple take a weekend trip to a remote location.
With serial killer mystery Longlegs and horror comedy The Monkey, Perkins has cemented himself as one of the genre’s most versatile directors. Switching gears again, Keeper is an admirable attempt at a surreal relationship thriller, but those previous successes make the film’s shortcomings all the more disappointing.
© NEON
Coming up on their one-year anniversary, the usually relationship-adverse Liz (Tatiana Maslany) travels with the mild-mannered Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) to his cabin in the woods. The couple seem at ease with each other, but as a stylish opening POV sequence featuring four women smiling and then screaming suggests, Liz is unquestionably in danger. We see her squirm as Malcolm’s creepy cousin (Birkett Turton) stops by with his date, the comically vapid model Minka (Eden Weiss), and her sinisterly sweet boyfriend pressures her to eat a chocolate cake. Something is off, and that straightforward set-up is stretched and milked for all its worth, because Keeper keeps you guessing as to where it’s headed for so long that it’s hard to invest in the eventual payoff. One bizarre set-piece blends into the next without reason, and with each unmotivated action, the film becomes a vexing watch that is agonisingly close to working. Still, in the unfocused hour-long buildup, there is fun to be had, with Perkins consistently delivering visual flair and well-crafted scares.
© NEON
To her immense credit, Maslany holds the film together for most of its runtime. Lending considerable depth to a role defined as little more than the suspicious partner in peril, she is gripping even when the script is at its most aimless. Sutherland is also compelling as an awkward “nice guy” who’s clearly hiding something, and when analysing each element in isolation, it’s clear that Keeper has all the elements to be a runaway hit: an eerie woodland setting, inventive creature design, and an excellent lead performance. It’s a shame that those qualities are buried under the weight of a meandering, hollow script.
© NEON
It is a curious thing to contribute to the discourse around Keeper when the definitive review has already been written. As director Eli Roth says, in an endorsement spread across NEON’s social channels, the latest from Osgood Perkins is “like a surreal David Lynch movie.” Unfortunately, when considered in the wider pantheons of cabin-in-the-woods thrillers and toxic-romance horror, Keeper is defined by a similar redundancy.