Intensity 🩸🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Directed by Osgood Perkins
Written by Nick Lepard
In Keeper, a dating couple takes the next step by going to the boyfriend’s lodge in the woods, which, given the opening credit montage of screaming women, might not be the best idea. Osgood Perkins delivers a stylish modern thriller delivered on the bones of a folk horror skeleton. Tatiana Maslany is in top form as a horror actress, delivering quirk, pathos, and proper survivor smarts. The plot hides its secrets well. Perhaps too well, as you might leave the theater still trying to fill in the mental puzzle pieces.
Osgood Perkins has developed a recognizable style in a word: Brooding. There is a constant cold intellectual quality to his films. They tend to connect more on an intellectual level than on an emotional one. In The Blackcoat’s Daughter and Longlegs, he established a strong liminal visual vocabulary, and the same is true of Keeper. (Though The Monkey has a more conventional presentation.)This movie holds its secrets tight. It reveals the plot visually, languidly holding focus on a scene, allowing you to soak in the situation, often waiting for something dramatic to happen. It’s a great way to earn jump scares.
The Cast of Keeper
- Tatiana Maslany plays Liz, an artist who is traveling to her boyfriend’s cabin in the woods for the first time on their one-year dating anniversary.
- Rossif Sutherland plays Malcom, Liz’s boyfriend, and a doctor who wants to impress Liz with his lovely forest lodge.
- Birkett Turton plays Darren, Malcom’s brash, annoying younger cousin who owns a lodge right next door.
- Eden Weiss plays Minka, a European model whom Darren brought with him to the family compound.
A Synopsis of Keeper
Liz and Malcom are travelling from “the City” (Vancouver?) into a deep forest where Malcom owns a stylish 80’s era modern cabin, with lots of cedar, glass, and overlapping volumes. They are celebrating their one-year dating anniversary, and it is beginning to feel serious, but they need this trip to take their relationship to the next step. This will be Liz’s first visit to the cabin. Malcom proudly places one of Liz’s paintings in the entry to the home, even though Liz is nonplussed by this act.
That night, Liz and Malcom settle in for a romantic dinner. Before they can eat a cake that Malcom’s housekeeper made for them, they are rudely interrupted by Malcom’s obnoxious cousin Darren and his trophy date, Minka. Darren boldly announces that this is Malcom’s Big Night, before whisking him away for a private conversation. Minka warns Liz that “The cake tastes like shit.” After Darren and Minka stumble back to their cabin, Malcom offers Liz some of the cake. Liz initially demurs because chocolate doesn’t suit her appetite, but then agrees to have a small piece… and indeed it doesn’t taste good. Later that night, however, she wakes up, compelled to consume the rest of the cake, and discovers that there are severed fingers in it, but that doesn’t stop her from finishing it off.
When morning breaks, Malcom awakes to find Liz sketching ominous ink images in a clearly drugged-out state. Liz has also been suffering from hallucinations of screaming bloody women. When she awakens for a walk in the forest, an unseen entity assaults her. Malcom has to return to the City to take care of a patient who isn’t recovering from a stroke, leaving Liz alone in the cabin. The cake seems to have triggered an awareness in Liz as her hallucinations become waking nightmares.
Liz also suspects that Malcom has a wife, and duped her into being a mistress. Strange sounds and scenes begin to build, and unwanted visitors appear with evil intent. Has Liz lost her mind? Is Liz the source of the bloody visions? Are there ghosts in play? AreMalcom and Darren out to kill her? Are they human? Or did she have a really bad reaction to chocolate? There are suggestions of all three as she tries to hang on until Malcom gets back, which has uncertain implications as well.
Evaluation
Tatiana Maslany is perfect for this type of film. Maslany’s expressive face goes through the full emotional spectrum. She moves through joy, amazement, frustration, suspicion, and raw terror with ease. Her performance is critical in a story centered on the relationship between Liz and Malcom, as this film is essentially a two-hander. Malcom, on the other hand, is a blank slate. Like Liz, the audience gets to stare at Malcom and try to get a read on him. Where Liz plays the expressive artist, Malcom is the stoic, if loving, doctor. Or… is he? He’s so inscrutable!
The plot is a slow builder. Perkins and Lepard hold onto the story cards for a long time. The pieces during the first two acts don’t add up easily. There is a mystery in play, and we know there is a violent reputation for this place from the very opening credits. Women have suffered here, but why? The disjointed clues keep the mystery alive up to the third act, when an exposition dump and a very old flashback are shown. I found myself appreciating the movie early, but struggling to put the puzzle together. Even after the clever ending (non-spoiler: Honey is involved) is resolved, I found myself having to talk through the story with my podcast partner, Mike, to make sense of it.
That might really appeal to you if you like an intellectual challenge in a film. And, to a certain extent, I liked that as well, but I thought that the story lore may have been over ambitious and a little unclear about the motivations of the dark forces that are in play. There is an aha moment, but it had to be unloaded in an exposition sequence, and that feels like the writers trying to fill you in, Agatha Christie style.
Concluding Thoughts:
Even with those reservations, Keeper is an enjoyable film. This continues Osgood Perkin’s entrenchment as one of Horror’s leading idea generators. The story feels completely original, if a bit quilted together. He is also a style perfectly suited for independent horror. The Second Golden Age of Horror continues, and Perkins is one of the leading lights.
Nick Lepard is a new screenwriter who has now written two of the more memorable movies this year, pairing this film with Dangerous Animals. That is an impressive early resume. The Emmy award-winning Tatyana Maslany fully committed herself to this performance, and I remain a big fan of her work. Rossif Sutherland had to play this role cooler, but he has a strong presence… and his father’s (Donald) deep, rich timbre.
Keeper is currently in wide release in theaters throughout the USA. The movie is rated R for violent content/gore, language, and some sexual references. Keeper is a more mature movie for independent film fans, more than popcorn-munching thrills. It’s thoughtful and beautiful, with great acting, but it needed to tighten up its lore a little bit.