KEEPER: We've Seen Osgood Perkins's Latest And We Know The Secret Of The Cabin In The Woods

If there is one thing you can say about director Osgood Perkins, it's that you never really know what you're going to get once the lights go down and the nightmares begin to unfold. After seemingly setting a very firm tonal throughline in his first few features, 2015's The Blackcoat's Daughter, 2016's I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House, and 2020's Gretel and Hansel, all three of which drench the audience in the creeping anxiety of classical slow burn horror, the filmmaker's work began to shift rather dramatically.

With the austere brutality and intricately constructed Longlegs, Perkins moved into a completely different realm, following that up with the gleefully over-the-top splatstick gory glory of The Monkey, it has become clear that he has a bag jam-packed with wicked tricks and he's only just begun to show us what he's got.

Perkins's latest film, Keeper, dropped its final trailer last week, and the anticipation is building to a fever pitch. We got a chance to take a look at the final product, and it's yet another insane banger for the hardest working man in horror, and we're here to give you a few tidbits to look out for in preparation for Perkins's second horror gem of 2025.

In the final release trailer (see below), we see Tatiana Maslany having a really bad time at a really nice cabin in the woods where nothing is as it seems. The cabin and its owner like to keep their secrets, but we've unlocked the mystery of Keeper, and it's even more unsettling and terrifying than the trailer would lead you to believe. We jumped to a number of conclusions throughout the film that all held a kernel of the truth, but when the true horror was finally revealed it was shocking and yet completely inevitable. 

The cabin is a glass menagerie of horrors where an ancient ritual preys upon unsuspecting victims. This gilded, angular locale presents a façade of antiseptic modernity that hides some truly fucked up shit. This is no vacation home, this is a nexus of pain and suffering.

Tatiana Maslany’s Liz is the latest sacrifice to the eternal hungers that live within Keeper’s cabin. She is set upon by the witchling creatures teased in the trailer, but what you don’t see is even more terrifying than what you do. If you think they look fucked up in the trailer, just wait until you see them in action.

Then there’s the climax, and oh what a climax it is. A bubbling undercurrent of dread and paranoia explodes in an orgiastic display of orgasmic catharsis with imagery that is equal parts Junji Ito and Clive Barker, proving once again that Perkins is a master filmmaker committed to going as far over the top as he possibly can, and we are here for it.

To say much more would be cruel to the viewer who deserves to experience it for themselves but let us be clear: it’s time once again to get fucking hyped!

Keeper opens in cinemas this Friday, November 14^th, look out for our review from Shelagh Rowan-Legg.