Keeper (2025) is directed by Osgood Perkins and written by Nick Lepard. It stars Tatiana Maslany, Rossif Sutherland, Birkett Turton, Claire Friesen, Tess Degenstein, Christin Park, Eden Weiss, Erin Boyes, Gina Vultaggio, Glen Gordon, Logan Pierce, and Dolores Drake. The film follows Liz, a woman who agrees to accompany her boyfriend, Malcolm (Sutherland), on a weekend trip to his family’s secluded cabin retreat. After a surprise visit from Malcolm’s pushy little brother, Darren (Turton), Liz begins to suspect that her relationship might not be as picture-perfect as she believed. In an attempt to relax and enjoy the weekend, she consumes a slice of chocolate cake that was left behind as a gift from the cabin’s mysterious housesitter. Unfortunately for her, something in the cake causes her to experience horrifyingly psychedelic, centuries-spanning visions of multiple women who violently perished on the same property. With a shaky grip on reality, Liz’s suspicions quickly reach a boiling point. The question is: Is Malcolm’s behavior the reddest of red flags, or is she just having the worst psychedelic trip in the history of shrooms, LSD, and MDMA combined? 

The film was shot during the 2023 Hollywood strikes, north of the border, with a wholly Canadian cast and crew. As a result, some of the supporting cast members feel a bit green for a major studio release. Maslany is thankfully the one person who provides the kind of acting gravitas audiences have come to expect from a Perkins-made horror film. She easily conveys the overwhelming terror of Liz’s situation, specifically her push-and-pull battle to keep a grip on reality. She’s also great at conveying a sense of general terror. To put it a bit more crudely, she’s a believable screamer. Her terror feels unfiltered in a way that’s ugly, instinctual, and thus uncommonly authentic. 

Unfortunately, despite Maslany’s evident talent, Liz is a character who’s often extremely frustrating, even before she starts tripping balls on whatever kind of Lucifer-produced psychedelic is in that deceivingly delicious-looking chocolate cake. For example, there’s one particular scene early in the film that sees Malcolm and Liz getting frisky in the kitchen. Just when their pants are about to drop, Malcolm awkwardly halts the interaction so he can creepily tell Liz to eat a piece of the chocolate cake. She replies without a hint of sarcasm that she hates chocolate, but Malcolm continues to push the request until she relents. This behavior should immediately set off multiple red flags, but Liz willingly ignores them and proceeds to eat the cake, then moves on as if nothing weird just happened. These frustrating choices continue throughout the film, and are sometimes so confusingly dumb that it’s tough to forgive them, even when given the context that the character is in the midst of history’s most terrifying psychedelic trip. 

Certain portions of the dialogue feel extremely rushed, often giving viewers the dreaded thought: “Real human beings don’t speak like this.” These hints of a possible hurried writing process are given further weight by the many plot holes and loose ends featured in the third act. After the reveal of a particularly satisfying and surprisingly coherent twist, the script fails to deliver anything particularly meaningful or thought-provoking. The only ‘idea’ the film offers is that “those pesky males can be real evil, creepy, sickos sometimes, can’t they?” This theme would’ve felt old 2 years ago, which made me, in disbelief, ask myself multiple times: “Are they serious about this crap right now?” One could justify a lot of the film’s unexplained or indecipherable moments by saying something along the lines of, “Of course it’s confusing; losing your sense of reality would be!” I suppose I understand this stance, but it’s the kind of ‘rational’ creative choice that hinders more than it elevates the film.       

The film’s only true saving grace is that Perkins once again displays a sharp command of visual tone, including the ways he uses creative editing techniques to convey a cold, slow-creeping dread that also emulates the visual experience of losing one’s grip on reality. However, the film’s biggest triumph is its stunning creature/ghost designs, easily the best of their kind since maybe Pan’s Labyrinth (2006).  

Overall, this is a shoddily written, thematically inept ‘descent into madness’ psychological horror film that is easily Perkins’ most poorly written effort to date. Thankfully, it’s saved from complete disaster by his tight command of the visuals, including editing, cinematography, and even costume design. It’s the kind of film that has some stratospheric highs, but an equal number of subterranean lows. It’s not bad enough to hurt my excitement for future Osgood Perkins films, but it’s clear that after churning out three movies in the last 2 years, the guy needs to take a step back and slow down. It’s got some terribly shoddy moments, but it’s definitely not a forgettable watch. I can only tentatively recommend it to hardcore genre fans; that’s as far as I’ll go. “Bizarre” is honestly the best word I can think of to describe the experience. C+