3 months ago
20
Keeper
★★★½
MA 99 minutes
Osgood Perkins is an unusually pure horror director: he has no deep message, he isn’t hugely concerned with plot logic, he just wants to give you the heebie-jeebies. Additionally, he knows that one way to accomplish this is by leaning hard into the ridiculous.
Tatiana Maslany in Keeper in which a weekend getaway turns creepy.Credit: Rialto
That was his approach in his recent horror-comedy The Monkey, based on a short story by Stephen King, in which people started dying in abrupt, horrible ways whenever the toy monkey of the title started beating its drum. Not very funny, but definitely both absurd and creepy (and, as Cher from Clueless would say, “way existential”).
Scripted by the Canadian writer Nick Lepard, Keeper isn’t strictly a comedy, but there’s the same feeling reality could rupture at any moment. What the two films also share is the great Tatiana Maslany, who didn’t last long in The Monkey but here has the leading role of Liz, an artist who heads out on a weekend getaway with her doctor boyfriend Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland).
Their destination is a cabin in the woods owned by Malcolm’s family. But before you jump to conclusions, this is a modern, welcoming cabin, all honey-coloured wooden surfaces and wide windows to let in the light: even the books lining the shelves look as if someone might have read them in the last century.
Likewise, Malcolm himself seems like a nice guy. The worst thing anyone can say about him is that he’s a little beige (Perkins himself doesn’t shy away from bright colours, with Liz’s red sweater taking on special importance as the film progresses).
Something is wrong, all the same. Peculiar things start happening in the background of shots, which we’re encouraged to notice before the characters do. Typical of Perkins is the sense of innocence gone awry: the film’s theme tune is the old-timey I Don’t Want To Play In Your Yard, in the insinuating cover version by Peggy Lee.
Whatever supernatural shenanigans may be unfolding, we can fairly assume they’re meant as a grotesque metaphor for the imminent breakdown of Liz and Malcolm’s relationship. That’s almost all that should be said, except that while in theory the film may be a two-hander, in practice it belongs to Maslany all the way.
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Often alone on screen, she has the kind of alert, grounded intelligence that draws us into her character’s perspective without apparent effort, but also an emotional range limitless enough to keep us guessing.
Even when Liz is scared out of her wits, there are glimmerings of other feelings less easy to label, at times resembling curiosity or even amusement. In hindsight, this can be seen as laying the groundwork for the bizarre ending – which may not be precisely scary but is certainly disturbing, at least when we reflect on the fact Perkins thought it was a good idea.
Horror fans may be reminded of the chilly snicker of Ari Aster (Midsommar), probably Perkins’ nearest artistic cousin. But where Aster often strains for weirdness, Perkins’ gift is that he seems incapable of anything else.
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