by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $14.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Intro:
... stylish, tense and gripping suspense ...
Director Osgood Perkins, the helmer of quirky genre-adjacent flicks like The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, has been on a bit of a winning streak of late. Netting himself critical praise and commercial success with the one-two punch of Longlegs (2024) and The Monkey (2025), horror fans began to wonder if this was the beginning of a trend towards more mainstream efforts, films that were less challenging and obtuse. Ol’ mate Perko answers that with Keeper, and it’s a defiant “yeah, nah, mate” from the bloke, as his latest effort is as likely to confound as it is delight, and we suspect a lot of audiences will be confused. That, however, is not necessarily a bad thing.
Keeper is a tense two-hander, the story of Liz (Tatiana Maslany) and Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland), a couple celebrating their first anniversary in Malcolm’s secluded cabin in the middle of beautiful yet remote woods. From the jump, something seems a little off about this pair, and Liz in particular has a strange reaction to the very flash-looking woodland retreat. She hears strange noises coming from other rooms, has weird visions and doesn’t at all enjoy an unexpected visit from Malcolm’s dickhead cousin, Darren (Birkett Turton). However, when Malcolm is called back to the city to help a patient, things really go off the rails and Liz has to face the reality that something very strange wants to make contact with her.
Keeper is a hard film to talk about without getting into spoilers, but it’s basically your classic slow burn horror yarn that kicks off in the third act. And crikey, it really kicks off! Surreal, twisted and genuinely creepy, it’s absolutely worth the wait, even if some will be put off by the ambiguity and lack of concrete explanations.
Tatiana Maslany gives an astonishingly committed performance, truly digging deep and you can see every ounce of emotion on her face. Birkett Turton does solid work, although the pairing of the two never quite feels natural, which may have something to do with the rather uneven script from Nick Lepard. Perkins’ direction is thankfully more restrained here than The Monkey, and the whole production has a similar vibe to Alex Garland’s Men: stylish, tense and gripping suspense that explodes into an ending that is going to prove divisive.
Keeper won’t be for everyone, but for those who like their genre efforts drenched in mood and short on explanation, you’ll find something to value in this unusual relationship.
