The Poppies of Terra #69 - Keep On Keeping On

As I was watching Keeper, Osgood Perkins’ latest horror film, in the theater on Friday, audience reactions ranged from muted to audibly appreciative. The picture certainly worked for me, but it got me thinking about divisiveness in responses to horror cinema. 

The movie is essentially a two-hander between Liz (Tatiana Maslany) and Malcolm (Rossif Sutherland), whose relationship is serious enough to merit a weekend trip to his cabin but perhaps not secure enough to avoid certain issues coming to light during such a trip. While the basic framework is an overly familiar one, Perkins and his crew ably tap a number of defamiliarizing techniques to suggest another story behind the one we’re seeing.

A short prologue sequences through a number of women whose facial expressions all denote a similar emotional trajectory, from warmly in love to aghast with understanding. Who they are and exactly what they’ve come to understand is a question that immediately looms over the narrative. Recurring spliced-in flashes of their screaming, blood-spattered faces doesn’t make us hopeful.

Then, too, the cabin, though secluded, contains huge unshuttered windows, suggesting external transparency, while its interior boasts impossibly shadowed ceilings and walls, depicting inner opaqueness. This juxtaposition reinforces the idea that our initial impression of a place or a person may be severely mismatched with what's underneath the surface.    

The film’s pacing is deliberate in the extreme, but it’s artfully shot–Jeremy Cox, the cinematographer, imaginatively and beautifully disorients us in the most mundane spaces–in a way that elegantly creates a parallel between the aesthetic intrigue and the emotional guessing games. Extremely tight close-ups, overlapping visuals, and frequent use of hyper-shallow depth of focus create a cabin and woodland environment both clingy and claustrophobic and wispy and unreal. Slow zoom-ins keep directing our attention to what isn’t there but surely must be. As happens in a number of Perkins outings, a third-act exposition sequence may reveal too much in too upfront a manner, but there are plenty of unresolved questions that keep the foreboding mystery alive even after the key revelations. 

Going in I had no idea what subspecies of horror Keeper was, and I believe that enhanced my experience. While structurally it may recall Perkins' I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House (2016), spiritually I think it’s a closer cousin to his Gretel & Hensel (2020). Not overtly based on a faery tale, it nevertheless effectively taps a root of mythic import. Its impressionistic approach and emotional intimacy reminded me of Goran Stolevski’s poignant You Won’t Be Alone (2022), and the desaturated depiction of seeping, leachy nature brought to mind Kristina Buožytė and Bruno Samper’s enthrallingly atmospheric Vesper (2022). Edo Van Breemen’s score provides an understated but effective complement to the visuals, which are tremendously bolstered by Eugenio Battaglia’s subtle and creepy sound design. And as can often happen in seriously-minded horror, Maslany, as the female lead, delivers an incredible performance. A careful appreciation of the movie’s ending and implied themes also dispel a criticism I’ve seen leveled at her character’s decision-making being unrealistic.

Before the movie opened, a friend pointed me to a review whose title included the grandiloquent “His [Perkins’] Worst Movie Yet,” while another source promoted a different review whose title emphatically declared that Keeper is “Osgood Perkins’ Scariest Movie Yet.” Indeed, the split with critics on Rotten Tomatoes is right about down the middle, as it’s currently sitting at a 50% Tomatometer rating, with the audience slightly lower at a 41% Popcornmeter. Now, it’s not difficult to imagine certain things that Perkins might have done to win over some of the critics who felt conflicted or put off by Keeper, while still not courting more of the mainstream audience. Which brings us back to the idea of divisiveness in horror that I mentioned earlier. What tends to split critical from audience reception?

Looking back at horror or horror-adjacent films over the last quarter century, I’ve compiled a list of thirty-five titles that generally have solid critic scores and underwhelming audience scores (specifically, I imposed the criteria that the Popcornmeter be under 55%). As a result, these all display a wide gap between their respective appraisals. In fact, the average Tomatometer rating for this list is 81%, while the average Popcornmeter rating is 46%, so we’re looking at a substantial gap of about 35 points. 

Incidentally, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, which is on this list, was also directed by Perkins, so we can see he’s skirted this territory for some time.

Looking at this sample, here are some things that stand out to me:

• Ambiguity — Films that are downbeat, ambiguous, have a lack of clear resolution, or non-cathartic endings (e.g. She Dies Tomorrow), tend to be harder sells for audiences than critics. I’d wager that critics tend to interpret ambiguity as a sign of complexity, while audiences frequently find it unsatisfying or frustrating.

• Pacing — Slow-burn stories with minimalist or repetitive plotting and low immediate payoffs (e.g. Under the Skin, It Comes at Night) tend to rely on atmosphere and dread over action. The former are frequently lauded by critics but can bore or irritate an audience expecting thrills.

• Budget Tier / Release Strategy — I think critics can be more forgiving and even appreciative of low-budget independent films than paying customers. They can assess originality and ingenuity separately from production values. Audiences (with the exception of the most hardcore fans) may expect more polish. I’d say that the structural and financial context of a horror film (i.e. production, perceived widespread appeal, and the marketing strategy inherent to studio films) does help to inform consensus, aligning critics with audiences. High budget films, on the whole, tend to be less divisive, either positively or negatively.

• Marketing Mismatch / Expectations — Tying into the previous item is the question of expectations. Often, a film’s marketing campaign will try to capitalize on certain mainstream-friendly notions, which may in fact hurt the picture by disappointing those who show up looking for those elements (e.g. mother!, Die My Love). There’s also the question of self-selection. Films with wide releases are seen by a large, diverse general audience, increasing the likelihood of dissatisfaction among those seeking conventional entertainment. Limited releases often target a self-identifying, film-savvy audience, which can elevate the audience score, albeit sourced from a smaller pool, and decrease the gap. 

• Auteur Status — If a director is recognized by critics for a distinctive, idiosyncratic, and often acclaimed style (e.g. Charlie Kaufman with I’m Thinking of Ending Things), that director is more likely to receive the benefit of the doubt when their film is rated.

Of course, all of these live on a spectrum. While critics may have greater tolerance for lower-budget, more ambiguous, slower-paced, formally innovative horror by filmmakers with previous track records, they’re not always entranced–as, for instance, with Keeper. Clearly, it’s a delicate balance.

I’ll go on the record and say that I enjoyed Keeper more than Perkins’ highly-praised Longlegs (2024) and his recent splattery black comedy The Monkey (2025). In the case of Longlegs, I found the film’s partial engagement with the conventions of a real-world serial-killer procedural to be wholly unconvincing, which pulled me out of the experience. The Monkey, sporadically entertaining, seemed overly fussy and padded, more stuffed plush toy than animal spirit. I also appreciate that Keeper is not like these films. Perkins remains true to his oddness, but rather than relying on a distinctive affect (say, a la Wes Anderson) that carries from film to film, he has here adapted the approach to the specificity of his vision. I can’t imagine it’s easy to, even if partially, let go of certain artistic choices that have worked commercially before so as to make new decisions which may encounter resistance.

May Perkins and other horror storytellers long keep up the good fight.