'Keeper' Review: A Haunting That Never Fully Takes Hold
- Jack Ransom
- 1 minute ago
- 2 min read
By Jack Ransom - November 23, 2025
The second film this year from director Osgood Perkins. Keeper sees a romantic anniversary trip to a secluded cabin turn sinister when a dark presence reveals itself, forcing a couple (Tatiana Maslany & Rossif Sutherland) to confront the property's haunting past.
Perkins and the Rise of Modern Horror Auteurism
Alongside Jordan Peele, Ari Aster, Zach Cregger and Robert Eggars, Osgood Perkins has found himself at the forefront of modern horror in recent years. For Perkins this occurred last year with the crime horror, satanism inflicted police procedural Longlegs which completely blew up due to its mysterious marketing campaign, Nicolas Cage’s suitably uncomfortable appearance and it was damn good.
This year of 2025, Perkins began with an adaptation of the Stephen King short The Monkey which was a suitably macabre, fun and gory Final Destination-riff, of which was accompanied by a teaser for today’s film which he had also already shot. Whilst the trailer was suitably intriguing, I couldn’t help but get the sense that this vein of cryptic, symbolically heavy, off-kilter (and usually cult/folk related) A24’ised ‘elevated horror’ is wearing a tad thin, and unfortunately Keeper doesn’t put up a strong argument against that.
The film does establish a suitably shifty, uncomfortable and off-kilter mood that permeates the first half with a slow burn leering fashion, as Liz (Maslany) & Malcolm (Sutherland) attempt to settle into the isolated woodland home… before Malcolm’s obnoxious cousin (Birkett Turton) arrives spoiling the mood and Liz eats a slice of chocolate cake which leads to the film essentially becoming a stop-start slideshow of creepy imagery and paranoia, before the cryptic and (undercooked) reveal occurs.
Unique Ideas, Uneven Execution
Whilst the ideas behind what is occurring in the house are thankfully more unique than I was fearing, the execution could have been more effective and exciting. Sure, there is striking, bizarre and disturbing imagery, however at the same time there is an unintentional comedy to some of the CGI implementation (especially one visual motif that looks straight out of The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones). However, cinematography and camerawork-wise this is still excellent, and the trippy, distorted visual flair and scene transitions (the running water moments especially) look great.
Performance-wise Tatiana Maslany carries this on her shoulders. She doesn’t have the most substantial screenplay to work with, but she gives it her all, ranging from snarkily-witted, emotionally fractured, paranoid and mysterious. Counteracting this is the dry-toned, charisma-vacuum that is Rossif Sutherland who certainly wears the suspicion on his sleeve. Birkett Turton is instantaneously and intentionally unlikeable and Eden Weiss’ Minka offers a hazy, wide-eyed turn.
A Stylish but Underwhelming Horror Outing
Keeper is a disappointing new offering from Perkins, especially given how solid both his prior two outings are. Stylistically and visually the film does excel throughout, the idea behind the reveal is interesting and Maslany is locked in. However, the inconsistent pacing, undercooked script, lack of genuine frights and unease, coupled with familiar genre tropes hold it back.
'Keeper' is out now in cinemas.
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