‘Keeper’ REVIEW: Confronting the Fear of the Unknown
‘Keeper’ REVIEW: Confronting the Fear of the Unknown
PICTURE 1: Liz (Tatiana Maslany) and Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) overlooking the outside of the cabin // still from TMDB
Love him or hate him, it is undeniable that Osgood Perkins is on a run. After years of developing his own style of slow, elusive supernatural eeriness with features such as The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives in the House and following up on the genre tradition set by his father Anthony Perkins’ iconic role in Alfred Hitchcock’s adaptation of Psycho, it is his 2024 release, the horror crime-thriller Longlegs that ultimately shot his stock up in the horror community. Bolstered by an enticing marketing campaign set by distributor NEON, it netted over 120 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
Riding off the success of that Nicolas Cage-led hit, the turnover of Perkins’ output has further ratcheted up with his breakout fame, with him putting out two films this year alone. Earlier this February, he put out The Monkey, one of several 2025 theatrical Stephen King adaptations and a shift in tone from his oeuvre into a more darkly comedic slapstick register, whilst doubling as a pseudo-rumination of sorts on his own past losses and relationship with his lauded family. This second 2025 release of his, Keeper, was also intriguingly cryptic in its initial lead-up which include a teaser attached to the end of screenings of The Monkey, several hour-long looped videos of clips (one of which intercut with several jumpscares), and an outpour of positive reviews from notable names such as Bong Joon-ho, Hideo Kojima, Fede Álvarez, and Eli Roth (though the last remark ended up being notable for the wrong reasons). It is indeed laudable that a director could consistently be provided opportunities for his original genre films in a film landscape that is more reliant on the recycling of past IP, but it does not really exempt Perkins from criticism either. Sure, while Keeper isn’t a bad frightfest of a time at the cinema, containing a potent mix of intriguing visual ideas and commanding atmosphere, it’s also a signifier that Oz has further ways to go in expanding the breadth of his elusivity in this more ‘pop’ framework.
PICTURE 2: A spectral reflection from the water // Still from TMDB
The whole setup for Keeper is straightforward, bare-bones, and open to plenty of types of horrors. It follows Liz (Maslany) and Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland), a couple who spend an anniversary weekend in the latter’s cabin away from the city. Despite some usual relationship-centered insecurities, all seems to be well, until Liz notices peculiarities around the area. A mysterious, shitty-tasting cake, strange-looking visitors, random visions, and a general feeling of unease seem to permeate this trip, until she realizes that danger might be closer than she would want to think.
Saying much more would ultimately give away the whole game, though the way it does made me reflect on the nature of this type of mystery-box genre storytelling. While oftentimes it could be a positive wherein the structuring of the script’s turns could further enrich its writing with the uncertainty being the jumping point (see: Zach Cregger’s raison d’etre), in the case of Keeper though, it gambles with the sense that said uncertainty becomes the lynchpin (pun intended) of the whole enterprise, the full scope of its thematic ambition being revealed with its twists. It’s not an overtly bad thing, though; the fear of the unknown is definitely a valid thing to hold on to for audience investment, especially in horror, and with enough proper setup, the level of devastation inflicted by the recontextualization could provide a satisfying conclusion.
To his credit, Perkins milks the unknown for all its worth in the film’s earlier acts and ostensibly its most “fun” sections. There’s a certain voyeuristic quality ingrained in the way he places the camera, which is most exhibited in the opening pre-title sequence that kicks the mystery off and, in a way, “trains” viewers to be aware of what or who they’re looking at (or be paranoid about whose eyes they’re looking through). Perkins’ reliance on symmetrical central-framing shot composition remains, but there’s an additional kooky playfulness with negative space and infrastructure in the film’s most tense moments that gets a lot of mileage out of trippy tension. While you might not be sure what to be scared of, you still are gonna be scared of something.
It’s relatively engaging stuff on a surface level, the ambience and punctuating jumpscares giving a nice ebb and flow to the most bizarre goings-on in the mysterious cabin, which makes it a bit disappointing when Keeper starts revealing what it really has inside its mystery box: bizarrely incongruent with the past hour of movie we have experienced. Most of this could be attributed to the fact that when we get down to it, the script by Nick Lepard doesn’t really give any compelling characterization priorhand to our two leads despite their relatively good performances (especially when the third act kicks in), and the exposition unveiling the whole masquerade so straightforward the impact of the mindscrew - which we assume was the whole point of the movie - gets numbed.
PICTURE 3: An overhead shot of Liz (Tatiana Maslany) // Still from TMDB
And here’s the catch: the film it ultimately reveals its interest to be isn’t a bad one. It’s a grimly fantastical concept with great VFX work, and it contains the most emotionally resonant scene of the film. It came too little too late, though, and with minimal scaffolding to hold it up, its integration into what came before and after it just does not feel earned. Some of the doled-out subtext does work when viewed from the angle that Perkins described as “a date movie.” But like most of the film’s positives, they come off as pieces to the puzzle that don’t quite work together: lesser than the sum of its parts.
This essentially sums up my whole dilemma with Keeper as a whole. It admirably dips its toes into neat little surreal ideas, which result in admittedly intense claustrophobic stretches of folk horror mechanics, which could be serviceable as plays to the mainstream (which makes its D+ Cinemascore all the more ironic). I didn’t dislike the time I spent witnessing it unfurl; it’s just that it ultimately could not outrun the hollowness at its core and the lack of care put into what lies behind the fog.
I wouldn’t want to fall into the trap of complaining about what a film didn’t try to do instead of what the film actually does. I can’t deny, however, the gnawing feeling that Keeper would’ve worked better if it didn’t execute its conceit on the wavelength it did. That way, it could’ve taken more interesting avenues instead of coasting on hollowness for most of its runtime and done its ultimate intents justice.
What we have, though, is still a weird little film that functions alright as an exercise in style, and I am still interested to see whether the Perkins-NEON partnership continues to prosper. That being said, hopefully, we get something a bit more robust next time around. A bit premature to call him a horror master, but Perkins does have something here that can be built on that deserves way better.
‘Keeper’ is showing in Philippine cinemas through Pioneer Films.
