Keeper

Grade: B

Osgood Perkins (The Monkey) makes some wonderful choices throughout most of Keeper – then, in the third act, he makes too many choices. I continue to perk up with interest whenever I see his name attached to a project. Keeper efficiently trucks along with marvelous mystery, only to methodically, deliberately, specifically tell us about everything going on at the end. In that vein, you can compare it to Cuckoo, or Osgood’s own Longlegs. You can’t accuse him of being vague – I’ll give him that.

It’s refreshing to see a movie that doesn’t have a “double-booked vacation spot” angle in the plot. At the beginning, it appears that it might be going there. Rossif Sutherland (Donald’s son, Kiefer’s brother) and Tatiana Maslany (working with Perkins again so soon after The Monkey) play Malcolm and Liz, a new couple celebrating a one month anniversary at a cabin. It’s been in Malcolm’s family for decades. His cousin stays at one next door. Strange, supernatural terrors begin to rear their heads, particularly when Liz is alone. I bet it sounds so ordinary and cliched to say that, but it’s better to see it for yourself than have me describe it. The film’s first 75% is the strongest.

I loved the opening. There’s a surprise involved. Perkins plants jump scares in places you weren’t anticipating one. They genuinely got me. Conversely, none would happen when I’d be preparing myself for one. He also trains us to look beyond the actors to the background in any given shot. There’s not always something to be seen. Mirrors are used in a fun way, sometimes making me think it was a hallucination sequence with a clone. Those do appear here, but there are other parts where nothing weird is happening, and it’s just a mirror. Unusual camera angles – such as a few filmed from below, looking up – give a haunting, disorienting vibe. It’s all an alluring journey, until we get slapped with the Cliffs Notes at the end.

When there’s about half an hour left in the movie, Malcolm tells Liz to “stay for just half an hour or so. I’ll explain everything.” That could be Perkins talking to the audience. The final act is a cumbersome, overwhelming information dump – laying out absolutely everything for us. It somehow manages to make it all more confusing. I’m glad Perkins is working so much; he should get award nominations one day. If he can learn to keep his explanations simpler, since he insists on always pulling back the curtain at the end, he would be unstoppable. Keeper, once again, proves him to be a master at creating atmosphere and unexpected tension, even if you don’t always know what the hell it’s all about, even though you’re told.

Grade: B