A woman goes for what she hopes will be a romantic weekend. But romance is one of the few things not on the menu. Star Tatiana Maslany displays some decent acting chops. But this slow-burn horror pic is a heavy-drinking, profane and grotesquely creepy flick with nothing much on its mind, as horror fare goes.
Her boyfriend’s creepy cousin called her a “keeper.”
Somehow though, Liz didn’t take that as a compliment. Nor did the statement really feel positive in the slightest coming from him. When cousin Darren looked at her with that smarmy grin and ushered his date out the door with his hand on the woman’s backside, Liz just felt her skin crawl a little. And her boyfriend Malcolm’s tepid reaction to the conversation didn’t help the situation.
The fact is, this whole weekend away to Malcolm’s family cabin has been less idyllic than she had hoped for. I mean, the place is a beautiful gem, with vaulted rooflines and floor-to-ceiling windows. And it’s situated in a scenic spread of lush forest and gorgeous running springs.
But something is off.
It’s not that Liz and Malcolm haven’t been getting along great up until now: They have. He loves her free-spirited artistic gifts; she coos over his buttoned-down doctor stability. Her dry humor, his stodgy frumpiness. They just work.
But up at the cabin, it’s been different. Now that Liz thinks about it, it all started with the cake.
Malcolm said that the cabin’s caretaker had left the rich confection for them. And even though Liz hates chocolate, Malcolm pressed her to try it. And she didn’t want to disappoint him, so, she had a slice.
Ever since, Liz has had these mental flashes of weird images. Almost like dreams. She sees women’s faces that are silently screaming. Images of rushing water, streaming clouds. She’s has been walking around in this weird funk, like she’s on drugs or something.
That can’t be the case, though. Malcolm would never let someone spike the cake. What would be the point? It would simply ruin their time up here. But Liz just can’t explain the way she’s feeling.
It’s making her angry. She’s snapped once or twice. And she hates it.
A “keeper” wouldn’t act like that.
[The following sections may contain spoilers.]
None.
Time reveals that there are some darkly spiritual things happening in and around the cabin. An unexplained supernatural power directly affects both Malcolm and Darren.
What begins as small ghostly hints—such as invisible fingers drawing on a steamy window or shadowed figures barely seen in night-shadowed rooms—eventually reveals itself to be a group of misshapen creatures. They have humped, distorted bodies, drooling open mouths, creepy elongated limbs and, in one case, a screaming collection of eyes, noses and mouths around its head.
We’re given the impression that these macabre monstrosities are transmogrified representations of women who have been sacrificed and consumed by spiritual entities over the course of hundreds of years.
We see two different women in two different bathtubs. One woman’s nudity is covered by soap bubbles (we see her bare shoulders). The camera angle keeps all but the second woman’s face and upper chest out of view.
When Malcolm begins displaying unexpected behavior, Liz’s friend suggests that he must be married and that Liz is his sidepiece. Liz sees a vision of Minka, Darren’s girlfriend, dressed in a low-cut black slip.
Malcolm and Liz kiss on several occasions. In one case, Liz comes up behind him and nuzzles his neck affectionately. In another, they become quite passionate in their kissing and caressing, and Liz unbuckles his pants, preparing for further intimacy. However, Malcolm stops her from proceeding.
Liz and Malcolm exchange jokingly crude dialogue about men and their attraction to breasts. After someone is apparently killed, Malcolm packs up the female victim’s belongings, taking time to perversely sniff her clothes before placing them in a box.
As the movie opens, we see a foreshadowing montage of wordless film clips featuring smiling, attractive women greeting an unseen individual. Their attitudes then shift in later clips. And eventually it becomes evident that they’ve all been battered and wounded. We see each woman covered in blood and screaming soundlessly.
A man picks up a large butcher knife to attack someone. We’re shown a shadowed view of a man suspended upside down, his nearly severed head dangling by mere strands of skin. Another man is suspended and his head is dunked, screaming, into a jar full of liquid.
A pregnant woman is shot in the back and later in the forehead. Much later, her severed and desiccated head is pulled out of a large jar and hung up. We see the steaming entrails of a butchered pig in an animal pen.
A woman is attacked by something unseen that lifts her, convulsing and screaming, into the air. Later we see her severed head peeking out of a trash bag. Someone is approached by deformed creatures that run their hands all over her upper body and face. The camera cuts away and we hear her screeching from a distance.
The movie dialogue is peppered with nearly 30 f-words and a dozen s-words, along with multiple uses each of the words “h—,” “b–ch,” “a–hole and “b–tard.” God’s name is misused once or twice. People make crude references to both male and female genitalia. Someone uses an offensive hand gesture.
Liz and Malcolm drink wine and glasses of hard alcohol together. (As do Darren and Minka.) Malcolm actually uses wine and other beverages to get a distraught Liz very drunk, thereby controlling her. Darren declares that Minka “likes her Molly” (a reference to the drug ecstasy).
Film clips from the past feature several different women smoking cigarettes.
The slice of chocolate cake that Malcolm practically forces on Liz has an odd effect on her. She begins seeing fevered visions and then feels compelled to consume the entire cake on her own, displaying a combination of revulsion and lust. She’s left in an odd, hazy state—staring unfocused into space. She notes to a friend in a phone call: “I feel like I took mushrooms.”
Malcolm later mentions that the single slice of cake was meant to knock Liz unconscious, though it didn’t have its intended effect. Later still, someone else is force-fed the same dense chocolate dessert.
A woman vomits. As tensions mount, Liz’s terror becomes disturbingly palpable.
Director Osgood Perkins has been on a roll cranking out films over the last 16 months—including the occultic pic Longlegs, the outrageously gory The Monkey and his latest horror stab, Keeper. But while those earlier films wrestled openly with unsettling human failings and examinations of dark spirituality, Keeper is much less focused or introspective.
This arthouse horror pic is all about presenting a twisted psychological miasma: an atmospheric slow burn. Insightful messaging doesn’t seem to be on the mind.
In fact, if it wasn’t for actress Tatiana Maslany—who steadily turns the emotional intensity up on a script that offers her very little to work with—viewers would probably lose interest in this film’s gossamer-thin narrative about fifteen minutes in.
And if those viewers hang in there, they will eventually encounter a story about parasitical monsters, ritual sacrifices and men who abuse and torment for their own power. Though perhaps that is the symbolic point at the movie’s core: Men are entitled, and women suffer for it.
But frankly, even with Maslany’s acting chops on full display, that message isn’t one worth sharing; and this profane fever-dream pic isn’t worth the money spent on its ticket, the time lost in its watching or the headache gained by credit’s roll.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
