Keeper (2025) review: Osgood Perkins at his most divisive

Welcome to Knockout Horror. Today we are reviewing a brand new, ultra trippy folk-horror from Longlegs’ director Osgood Perkins – Keeper (2025). I’m not actually sure how I feel about this movie which is going to make it fairly difficult to review.

An anniversary getaway gone horribly wrong

The story follows a couple, Liz (Tatiana Maslany) and Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland), as they head to a rural cabin for a getaway to celebrate their one year relationship anniversary. What starts as an enjoyable weekend of relaxation, quickly turns bizarre as the property begins to reveal a sinister history that hints at something horrifying.

“This is a movie replete with hallucinogenic imagery, period flashbacks, artsy nonsense, and a hell of a lot of mundane padding.”

Before we start, if you watched Keeper and need some answers, why not check out our Keeper Ending Explained article? As soon as I watched this movie, I knew I needed to explain it. It leaves far too many loose ends. Remember, unlike this review, the ending explained isn’t spoiler free so consider yourself warned. Now, on with the review.

Distinctive flair or just trying too hard?

Osgood Perkins has been a pretty prolific director, as of late. This is his second title this year after the massive success of last year’s Longlegs. One thing I am seeing, however, is that his style is somewhat divisive. While the aforementioned Longlegs was backed up by an immense amount of hype, real world horror fans seemed a bit more split on it.

You’ll see a lot of comments along the lines of “had potential“, or “nowhere near as good as the hype suggested“; sentiments I completely get. I was very mixed on it myself, and felt it didn’t live up to expectation. 2025’s The Monkey was more of the same. While stylistically a million miles away from Longlegs, it still divided viewers in much the same way.

Loads of people liked it but, by the same token, a lot of people felt the splatter was over the top and the comedy didn’t work. I feel as though Keeper is more of the same. Perkins is becoming a bit of a Ti West as far as horror direction goes. He switches themes and subjects seamlessly while always maintaining a distinct sense of style and flair.

That style and flair however, seems to lead to his movies feeling a bit lacking in cohesion and, dare I say it, a tiny bit “try-hard”. That’s exactly the case, here. Keeper’s story is about as formulaic as they come. A couple spending time in an apparently haunted cabin in the woods. It’s horror 101, right? But you know it is never quite that simple with Perkins.

A deceptive setup buried in “Artsy Nonsense”

The overly familiar setup is somewhat deceptive, here. The story of Keeper goes in a direction that you really might not expect. Naturally, I won’t spoil anything but Perkins and writer Nick Lepard aim to subvert expectation at every turn. It’s the way they do this, however, that might leave viewers feeling a bit lost.

As time goes on, Liz begins to suffer a gradual decline of her mental health. She’s a city girl so the cabin feels isolated which unsettles her. Malcolm’s frequent trips to the city leave her bored and lonely.

On top of this, she is experiencing strange events in the house and seeing spirits that seem to be trying to tell her something. She finds herself questioning both her relationship and her own sanity. Frequent visits from Malcolm’s annoying cousin Darren aren’t helping, either and Darren’s girlfriend seems slightly troubled.

This is a movie replete with hallucinogenic imagery, period flashbacks, artsy nonsense, and a hell of a lot of mundane padding stuffed into the middle. If you don’t buy into Perkins’ very specific approach to visuals, you are likely going to find yourself bored and even a little confused.

A dreamlike slog to the finish line

Around 60% of this movie feels like that one scene from Rosemary’s Baby where Rosemary wanders around in a dreamlike state after being drugged so that Satan can impregnate her. It’s all kaleidoscopic, trippy visuals and a character doing things that make absolutely no sense until the final big reveal.

“That style and flair seems to lead to his movies feeling a bit lacking in cohesion and, dare I say it, a tiny bit ‘try-hard’.”

Even the flashbacks share a similar approach. It’s very arthouse and almost uncanny in its presentation. Like the kind of dream you would wake up from, barely remember, but feel slightly unsettled by. Much of this will likely appeal to many but others are going to find it a bit pretentious.

It leaves the viewer to fill in a few gaps, as well. This can make the storytelling a real slog and that’s where the real problems come in. There’s so little substance that it is difficult to latch onto anything. The movie’s characters don’t help, either.

Vanilla protagonists and obvious creeps

Liz is a very vanilla protagonist. While Tatiana Maslany is, for the most part, fantastic and very natural, Liz has little for the viewer to attach themselves to. We know nothing about her as she is viciously underdeveloped. She could be, quite literally, a blank canvas with no face for how little personality she has.

The struggling artist trope is done to death and not particularly engaging. It’s hardly a character arc to hang your hat on. She’s about as milquetoast as protagonists come. We spend a lot of time with her, too. Even she looks bored as she roams around the house doing literally nothing at all.

Malcolm, on the other hand, screams utter creep from the very get go. I’m not quite sure why Rossif Sutherland was allowed to portray him with such quiet malice but, suffice to say, you are unlikely to root for him from the very start.

Modern Folk Horror: Great visuals, mixed storytelling

So for those keeping score, that’s a very familiar setup, a dull protagonist, and a creep that will probably unsettle you a bit. Awesome! As the story goes on, it does open up to reveal something far more intriguing but getting there can be a battle.

The scares aren’t all that scary, it all feels extremely familiar, and the style-over-substance approach might just leave you wanting. The drip feeding of plot exposition comes in a non-linear fashion that requires you to sort of piece it together as the movie goes, as well. It can leave everything feeling a bit disjointed and even a little perplexing.

On the plus side, I did enjoy the plot twist. It’s a nice subversion of your expectations that serves to freshen things up a little bit for the final stanza. I am sure a lot of people won’t see it coming though I think the constant hints that “something is not quite right” will clue you in fairly early to at least part of it.

Perkins does know how to make a decent looking movie, too. I enjoyed some of the creature designs here, they were suitably creepy and even kinda disgusting in parts. I’m not sure that the CGI thrown in here and there was a great decision, though. It looks pretty rough.

It’s a slow-burn so fans of horror that’s in no rush will appreciate that. It’s difficult not to respect the way they have dragged a folk-horror story that spans centuries into the modern age, as well. For the most part, the story works, despite some lacking exposition, and the reality of it is quite a lot more haunting than it initially seems.

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