"Keeper" Film Review

Keeper

Rating: 2/5

By: Nathaniel Simpson

    If you have been following me for a while now, there is no secret I'm a huge fan of Osgood Perkins. Longlegs and The Monkey were some of my favorite movies of the last two years, and he proved himself as a great horror director in this day and age. Therefore, I was incredibly excited when Keeper was announced, feeling incredibly lucky we were getting two movies from Perkins that year. My excitement was heightened by the lack of showing the story or the plot details in the trailers, just showing the horror elements that Perkins is bringing to life. The reason for this is that there really isn't much of a story here, with Keeper being a very bland and boring film that doesn't really work until the last ten minutes of the movie. 

    The movie revolves around Liz (Tatiana Maslany) and her boyfriend Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland) as they go to his family's remote cabin for their anniversary. However, when they get there, Liz starts to experience weird, supernatural forces around her, forcing her to confront the fact that Malcolm may not be who he said he is. That's the whole plot - doesn't really feel very unique and very uninspired. However, this was Osgood Perkins, and I thought he would be able to add his horror flair and style to Nick Lepard's screenplay. 

    Unfortunately though, I think Lepard's screenplay is where the film goes wrong for the most part. Not only is the story incredibly uninspired, but it is simply boring and dull. Nothing really happens here for the majority of the runtime, and Liz noticing the weird things going on felt like a worse version of the events that take place during Olivia Wilde's Don't Worry Darling that came out a few years ago. It is obvious Lepard is simply not interested in telling this story or fleshing out the characters, and I'm honestly not too sure what he was going for here. What's frustrating to me is that I think if Perkins decided to craft this story, I think it would have worked a lot better. I adore his writing style and the ways he tells a story, and that is evident throughout Longlegs and The Monkey. But, as a director, he simply can't save this movie. 

    However, in terms of his direction on the film, I think this is without a doubt the weakest of the three films he has released for NEON so far. The horror elements he takes a lot of care into crafting aren't very evident here, and he exchanges it for more thriller-like aspects. While they are interesting to watch and I appreciate how Perkins tries to turn this into a haunted-house sort of film, it starts to become repetitive after a while. Like I mentioned, there wasn't much he could do to save this story, but it also seems more like a push of quantity rather than quality. They released this film in the same year as The Monkey, and I think they would have benefited from allowing him to craft another film before throwing him into the fire with another movie as quickly as possible. There is no doubt NEON and Perkins bit off more than they can chew here. 

    At the same time here, the performances here don't work for me much. Maslany is the only saving grace here, as I think she does her best with the material she is given. But, I cannot get behind Sutherland's performance whatsoever. I haven't seen anything with Sutherland in it, but only know he is the son of Donald Sutherland. Based on his performance here though, it makes me wonder if he is even a good actor or if he gets by off his father's name. I need to check out more of his work, but based off this performance here, there is nothing that impressed me about his acting abilities. 

    When reading this, you're probably wondering why I even gave it two stars based on how much I obviously did not enjoy this picture. I was also thinking this was going to get a lower grade when watching through the film, until we got to the last ten-minutes of the film. The finale of this film is where Perkins' horror genius comes to play, crafting a segment that is absolutely terrifying. I have heard others describe this as a slow-burn, waiting to get to this fantastic ending from Perkins. I wouldn't call it that, but as the ending of this film played out, I wasn't as mad that I sat through the rest of this film to get here. Would I say this movie is worth it to sit through for the ending? Absolutely not, but as a huge fan of this filmmaker, he was able to craft a great horror ending that is an apology for whatever the rest of the film did. 

    It is incredibly disappointing that this is how the film turned out. I was really excited for it due to my love for the other films Perkins had made, but Keeper simply doesn't work for me. I truly believe that if Perkins had the opportunity to pen this script and really change massive parts of this movie, we would have a different movie that would garner a more positive review.