Available on Digital on December 9, 2025
I wish Osgood Perkins would make a great movie. The dude seems to make a dozen horror movies a year, many of them worthwhile, but he has yet to make one that is start-to-finish great. Keeper, unfortunately, is the latest sign that the filmmaker has an eye for concepts but rushes them to market before they’re ready.
Keeper is at times creepy and boasts some intriguing moments, but is otherwise a surprisingly routine thriller from the guy who made Longlegs, The Monkey, and The Blackcoat’s Daughter. Interestingly, Perkins doesn’t have a writing credit for this one; Nick Lepard (who wrote the deliciously entertaining Dangerous Animals) holds the singular “honor” in that regard. The screenplay itself is not terrible, but it just doesn’t have enough material for someone like Perkins to do anything with it.
Keeper’s biggest flaw is that it tries to do too much with too little. Perkins kicks things off in fashion with a spellbinding opening montage, but after that Keeper digresses into a serviceably entertaining but straightforward thriller involving Liz (Tatiana Maslany) staying with her boyfriend/lover at his house in the woods. She starts to see horrifying visions, but doesn’t seem too upset about them. Her guy (Rossif Sutherland) seems sort of suspicious, so he’s probably in on it. Something is lurking in the woods, too.
Though executed well enough, the pieces come together in what can best be described as a predictable, routine horror movie. We’ve seen plenty of movies where someone starts to see things when alone in a house. Or where their significant other turns out to be something they’re not. Or where there is something in the woods. Keeper does nothing to take these ideas in a new direction, and if anything underdelivers on even its baseline potential.
Maslany is good but Keeper fails to fully take advantage of her skill set, while Sutherland’s character is underdeveloped. He largely disappears from the film after his One Big Scene. It’s a shame.
Keeper was probably never going to be Perkins’ great movie, but it’s almost frustrating that he wasted his time and talent on this one. It’s fine, but who wants to watch a horror movie that is just fine?
Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.