The 2025 film Keeper is a mystery folk-horror film directed by Osgood Perkins starring actors Tatiana Maslany, Rossif Sutherland, and Burkett Turton. The film was written by Nick Lepard. Maslany also serves as one of the film’s executive producers, while Sutherland simultaneously serves as a co-executive producer. The main plot centers around Maslany and Sutherland’s characters, a couple named Liz and Malcolm respectively, going out to a cabin owned by Malcolm to celebrate their one-year anniversary for a weekend.
The Cast and Crew
This is the second collaboration between Perkins and Maslany after Perkins’ 2024 film The Monkey. It is the first collaboration between Perkins and Sutherland. It is also the first collaboration between Perkins and Turton. The cast provides solid performances that manage to ground their characters, whilst also leaving enough mystery and subtlety to add to the overall cryptic vibe of the story.
Cinematographer Jeremy Cox brings a variety of different filming methods to build the tension of the film. Various long, steady shots highlight things in the background or foreground that go unnoticed by the characters. One particular shot early on in the film, when Liz and Malcolm first arrive at the cabin, shows the couple enter a room from the sliver of a nearly closed door, having the actors just barely in frame. It adds a sense of being watched, a feeling only further enhanced by other moments later in the film. In more frantic or confusing moments, such as when Liz finds a random necklace in the nearby creek, a fisheye lens effect is used to focus in on Liz’s confusion.
The Characters
Liz, a girl from the city who doesn’t frequent the countryside, is visiting her boyfriend Malcolm’s cabin for the first time out in the woods. Malcolm’s cousin Darren, played by actor Burkett Turton, owns a cabin across from Malcolm’s. Liz is a painter and artist, which Malcolm proudly supports as he hangs one of her paintings up on one of the cabin’s walls. Conversely, Malcolm is a doctor, which adds tension later on as he temporarily leaves to deal with a patient. Cousin Darren is described as obnoxious and rude, as shown by when he barges in on Liz and Malcolm’s dinner unexpectedly alongside his latest girlfriend, an Eastern European girl who speaks very little English named Minka, as played by actor Eden Weiss. During a moment where Minka and Liz are left alone, Minka points to a cake on the counter allegedly left by the cabin’s caretaker, simply stating it “tastes like shit.” Finally, Liz has a friend who she talks with over the phone at several points in the film named Maggie, played by actor Tess Degenstein.
The Story
Right off the bat, the film establishes a couple mysteries, such as the aforementioned cake which sits on the cabin’s dining room table upon Liz and Malcolm’s arrival. As established, Malcolm claims it was merely a gift from the supposed caretaker of the cousins’ cabins. Following Darren and Minka’s exit from the dinner, Malcolm opens the box containing the chocolate cake and insists that Liz tastes it, not knowing of the warning Minka made earlier. Liz begrudgingly agrees, despite her claim of not liking chocolate, only to awaken in the middle of the night after a series of strange dreams. Tiptoeing her way into the kitchen, she notices the cake remains untouched, outside of the singular piece she had eaten earlier in the night. Seemingly out of some feral urge or trance, Liz then eats the entirety of the cake, to the confusion of Malcolm who spies the cake’s box in the trash the following morning. The consumption of the cake seemingly triggers more dreams and visions for Liz, enhancing the supernatural theme of the movie.
Liz grows suspicious of both Malcolm and Darren following the cake incident, with her suspicions only growing further as Malcolm leaves to supposedly go help a patient. Liz glimpses a vision of a ghostly Minka in the kitchen, alongside an older woman wearing a paper bag over her head. This incident only makes her more urgent to leave the cabin, especially as her calls to Malcolm don’t go through. These vaguely supernatural elements become increasingly more overt, as one scene shows Liz frantically calling her friend Maggie to try and get a ride away from the cabin. As the camera sits deceptively still, pointing up at Liz as she sits on the bed in the bedroom, a gray humanoid entity slowly crawls its way along the ceiling behind her. While she doesn’t see the creature until later on, it makes clear to the audience that Liz is not just having strange dreams.
A Game of Trust
One factor of the film that was particularly highlighted in some of the marketing of not clear trailers for Keeper was the question of who to trust, providing monologues and voiceover from both Liz’s perspective and Malcolm’s perspective. While not as present in the final cut of the film, with a sequence at the beginning of the film showing various concerned women across different scenarios painting Malcolm in an already suspicious light, there are moments like Liz’s consumption of the whole cake that leaves just a sliver of doubt around the whole situation.
A theme that becomes clear through the movie’s messaging is one of trust within a relationship and the idea of women being portrayed as objects, made most especially clear by the presence of Minka and Darren’s general attitude towards women. Keeper provides nice building tension throughout, a creepy folk-horror style atmosphere, and a solid lead performance from Tatiana Maslany. While the explanation behind the core mystery may be underwhelming to some, it provides enough of an explanation through context clues and the reiteration of a few lines to make relatively clear what is going on. The various visions and later creatures that Liz encounters add a combination of folk and eldritch horror that feels fairly distinct, leaving the audience questioning things up until the grand reveal.
Keeper can be bought or rented from Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, or Fandango at Home.
Leave a Comment