Review: Keeper (2025) – Tatiana Maslany Carries Osgood Perkins’ Latest Vision of Dread

Tatiana Maslany anchors Keeper with a performance far stronger than the film around her.

If there’s one thing Osgood Perkins never fails to deliver, it’s atmosphere—glossy, prestige-leaning horror built around immaculate framing, soft-spoken unease, and the kind of composed dread that plays beautifully on a big screen. Keeper, his newest feature, checks all those boxes. What it doesn’t do—once again—is pull all that craft into a narrative that can hold its own weight.

Tatiana Maslany stars as Liz, and make no mistake: she is the movie. Everything compelling, emotional, or frightening about Keeper comes from Maslany’s performance. She’s not just carrying scenes—she’s carrying the entire film. Her co-lead, Rossif Sutherland as Malcolm, never rises to her level. Whether by design or miscasting, he’s a flat note in a film that desperately needed a stronger dynamic between its two leads.

Liz and Malcolm escape to a cabin getaway, the perfect setup for a folkloric nightmare—and the film immediately begins cutting between Liz’s present and a string of women who seem tethered to Malcolm: Ada (Claire Friesen), Leslie (Kristen Park), Julia (Erin Bows), Frances (Gina Voltaggio). Perkins leans hard into folklore, psychological dread, feminine hauntings, and even a touch of Asian-horror sensibility in the sound design and shot composition. It’s all visually striking, thanks to cinematographer Jeremy Cox, who previously shot Longlegs and The Monkey. If you’ve seen either, you know exactly how these images breathe.

And that’s the thing: Keeper is all breath. It’s inhalation. Setup. A shiver here, a whisper there. It operates in that slow, dreamy cadence Perkins has made his signature since The Blackcoat’s Daughter. The problem—again—is that the exhale never hits as hard as the film promises. There’s a fever-dream midsection that blends folklore, monster-mommy mythology, and spectral trauma… but the destination feels familiar. We’ve been here before. Many times.

The longer the movie goes, the more obvious the formula becomes. Perkins knows how to shoot dread. He knows how to create incredible marketing-ready images. He knows how to work with towering female talent—Maslany follows the long lineage of brilliant actresses drawn into his orbit. But structure, pacing, payoff… they continue to lag behind the aesthetic.

Nick Lepard’s script (after his excellent work on Dangerous Animals) feels thinner this time. Not lazy, just undercooked—ideas without elevation. Keeper often feels like the companion film shot while The Monkey was being finished, and that “second project” energy shows.

But here’s the thing: Perkins isn’t going anywhere. He has a locked-in visual identity, a loyal audience, and an uncanny ability to surround himself with A-list women who can sell his brand of horror better than anyone. Maslany will return with him again for The Young Ones, alongside Nicole Kidman. The trajectory is set.

As for Keeper: it is not the best horror film of the year. It’s not even Perkins’ best work. But it is a watchable, often hypnotic piece of dread that deserves credit for its craft, its mood, and its leading performance.

And honestly? It plays better the second time.

HMU Rating: 2.5 out of 5

A beautiful, eerie, half-formed nightmare—elevated entirely by Tatiana Maslany.