Director Osgood Perkins has become one of the most exciting new voices in horror in a short time, and largely thanks to the mystery he builds around his projects. Few knew much, if anything, about Longlegs when it premiered in 2024, while The Monkey had little more than its titular mascot and an ominous, even glib tagline to get audiences in theaters. Both tactics worked, with horror fans now looking forward to Perkins’ next film with bated breath.
True to form, Perkins is keeping things as vague as possible for his latest. The director told Inverse that Keeper is “a relationship horror movie,” one set to examine the “disconnect that we all suffer in our relationships.” It’s set to reunite Perkins with Tatiana Maslany, who previously appeared in The Monkey — but other than that, and the film’s ominous first trailer, Keeper remains a tantalizing mystery.
“Why does it always have to end?” asks Maslany’s character, “Liz,” in the new Keeper trailer. The teaser’s broken into two halves, one which follows her inner monologue, and the other which follows her partner Malcolm’s (Rossif Sutherland). Each takes turns asking rhetorical questions about their relationship: whether they can keep the spark alive, whether they’ve chosen to build their lives with a stranger. They’re questions anyone in a long-term romance will ask sooner or later — and maddening enough on their own.
But there’s another layer to Keeper just under the surface, one that will cause plenty of screaming, bloodshed, and creepy lurking in dark corners. The film could put a clever spin on the cabin-in-the-woods genre, taking our real-world anxieties about love, hand-in-hand with a supernatural threat that’s yet to be revealed. If Perkins’ past work is anything to go on, Keeper won’t disappoint; more than that, it’s sure to send a chill down our spine in the process.
