While on a a weekend getaway at a remote cabin, Liz (Tatiana Maslany) and Malcolm’s (Rossif Sutherland) romantic retreat takes a dark turn when a sinister presence unveils the cabin’s chilling past.
What We Thought:
Keeper is a film you’ll either think is utterly brilliant and tense or a slow burn that doesn’t really make sense. I’m in the camp of not really getting it. I get the gist of it and there are things I like about it, but ultimately it doesn’t pay off big enough for me to forgive the fact it doesn’t make a whole lotta sense.
There’s a cold open that immediately makes you realize things aren’t going to be what they seem. Then it cuts to its two leads in the car on their way to the woods. The girlfriend Liz (Tatiana Maslany) doesn’t seem quite amped to be heading into the middle of nowhere. The boyfriend Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) is relaxed because it’s his family’s place. They get to the cabin, everything seems to be going well until the doorbell rings. Liz is confused because she expected it to be just them. Malcolm knows it’s just his cousin and things start to seem off.
Now I’m not the biggest fan of supernatural horror. I can immediately tell something is way off and the film is going to go sideways. You watch to see what the folklore is going to be. That’s my biggest issue though, I don’t know if it makes any sense. I don’t know if it even explains itself enough to make sense. The ending takes forever and I don’t think I liked where they went with it either. There’s sort of a false ending which I was hoping was the real ending until I realized there was still like 15 minutes left in the movie. It unravels more and shifts to a more expected survivor and I think it’s a cop out.
The two leads are solid though. Maslany is a good actress and handles her job well. Sutherland comes from the Sutherland family (he’s Donald’s son), but I’m not overly familiar with his work and thought he was A.J. Bowen for a while. Osgood Perkins does a good job trying to keep things tense and the audience interested, but the story is so thrown together it isn’t clear what’s happening.
Perkins has been making a name for himself of late and of the three films he released in 2024 and 2025, Keeper is the least interesting to me. People loved Longlegs and I thought it was good, not great. I liked The Monkey more than this as well. Maslany fans will enjoy her performance and supernatural fans might like it too, but I wish it was a bit clearer and had a different ending.
The Nerds Templar 