Osgood Perkins and Tatiana Maslany Unravel the Disturbing Mystery of Their Horror Film KEEPER
Director Osgood Perkins has been on a tear lately, cementing his place as one of modern horror’s most distinctive voices. Fresh off the critical and commercial success of Longlegs and the Stephen King adaptation The Monkey, Perkins is teaming back up with Neon for his next original horror project, Keeper.
Starring Tatiana Maslany and Rossif Sutherland, the film follows a couple whose anniversary getaway to a remote cabin spirals into something far more sinister.
The film’s first teaser already left horror fans unsettled, and during San Diego Comic-Con, CB sat down with Perkins and Maslany to dig into the unsettling themes and unique creative process behind Keeper. When asked about the core of the story, Perkins said:
“It’s the worst part of being male. It’s a look at disgusting maleness. If you wanna call it the patriarchy, you wanna call it misogyny, you wanna call it toxic masculinity, whatever you wanna call it.
“It’s a depiction of our worst selves as men. That’s my answer to you. Sometimes we have to look and be like, ‘ew, gross.’ And I think that Keeper is a look at men, ‘gross.’”
Maslany expanded on that idea, adding:
“I would say, in some ways, it’s also a look at women, gross, if we’re gonna get super binary about it. But I do think it is the instincts that you ignore, or the ways you know something but have gaslit yourself.
“Which is obviously, I guess, patriarchy. That’s patriarchy. Never mind, it’s all about men. Men suck.”
While Keeper’s thematic bite is sharp, its production was anything but conventional. Perkins revealed the movie was essentially written on the fly, with writer Nick Lepard crafting the script as the team shot the film. Perkins said:
“It was sort of written in real time by our friend Nick Lepard as we were doing the movie. So we were like, we need a movie in a house. Yeah, we need a movie in a house with two people. Go. And he would sort of do it.
“And then he would report in. And we would say, great. And then he would keep doing more. And so it was sort of the energy of the whole project was kind of what if we made it up as we went along-ish and kind of had all the departments doing their development at the same time.
“So I was meeting with Tatiana at the same time that Nick was writing the script at the same time as our producers were knocking on doors trying to find locations. And we had no money and no time. And we just sort of, it was like an expressionistic painting.”
Perkins, the son of Psycho legend Anthony Perkins, has built his career on atmospheric, slow-burn horror. From The Blackcoat’s Daughter to Gretel & Hansel, his style has remained unmistakable. 2024’s Longlegs was a breakout moment, earning over $100 million, and earlier this year The Monkey became another box office win, bringing in over $64 million worldwide despite mixed critical reception.
Now, Keeper marks his return to original storytelling, keeping him in the middle of one of the most prolific creative streaks in modern horror.
Keeper arrives in theaters on November 14th.