‘Keeper’ Review: Osgood Perkins Directs an ‘Impressonistic’ Serial-Killer Movie — Lots of Creepy Atmosphere, Not Much Logic

I tend to shy away from the term if I can, but there’s no denying that Keeper, the new movie directed by Osgood Perkins, is an experimental horror film. That’s what’s good about it, and also what’s not so good about it. In theory, making an experimental movie is a bold creative act (though I wouldn’t score their success rate at too high a percentage). Two years ago, there was a radical experimental horror film that was nothing short of amazing — Kyle Edward Ball’s “Skinamarink,” which used a fragmentary narrative to touch the uncanny.

But in “Keeper,” a serial-killer drama with a handful of honestly creepy moments, the mood is low-key and naturalistic, yet a streak of trippy weirdness keeps intruding. And here’s the thing: The weird parts don’t add up. That’s likely by design, but that doesn’t make it good.