The movie ‘Keeper’ kept me from keeping with writing my reviews on a routine.

Hello all, it’s me again. I watched the movie Keeper, directed by Osgood Perkins, and starring Tatiana Maslany. I went into this movie sight unseen, but lordly lord I wish I’d waited for the reviews.

Obfuscate, Obliterate, Alliterate

Mid-film, I went to the bathroom, and described the movie as ‘relying on obfuscation as a cheap method to manufacture mystery’. The film is chock full of trendy lenses, and the classic A24-type off-center shots. Now, Perkins isn’t some amateur. He’s not the type to just run a shot because he wants it to look like it’s fancy. Except… it never really comes to fruition.

The classic girl stuck in the cabin in the woods shit runs cold, and there’s no mystery involved in why the camera is looking in on the cabin. I get it. We know. Someone be watching. The boyfriend is mysteriously too good. Rich and supportive, but there’s some tension that can’t be pinpointed. There’s a weird cousin who doesn’t seem to respect boundaries or women. The boyfriend sometimes makes weird comments. GOT IT.

The film is straightforward, and the plot doesn’t meander. It’s a major detriment, and as a result, Perkins is forced into relying on these flashy techniques to keep the movie visually interesting. Dream sequences and hallucinations, and the entire catalogue of squeaky woodboards from their sound repository.

To the film’s credit, the scary creature designs were relatively interesting, but there was nothing extraordinarily frightening about the creatures, nor the movie as a whole. I wanted to praise the soundtrack, but another directing mistake was that the track was so spooky that I wasn’t sure if it was music or something groaning in the walls. I rate the film

YMMV

With a heavy lean towards BAD.

Wondering how my rating system works? Let me explain!