Tatiana Maslany anchors a terrifying final act as Perkins blends folklore, body horror, and generational curses to reveal the true nature of those cabin-dwelling creatures — and the shocking fate of Malcolm.
Osgood Perkins, one of the most distinctive horror stylists working today, has delivered two unnerving genre entries this year — the Stephen King adaptation The Monkey and the cabin-in-the-woods nightmare Keeper. While the two films differ wildly in tone and mythmaking, Keeper stands out as a folkloric descent into manipulation, immortality, and monstrous legacy. And its ending may be Perkins’ most shocking reveal yet.
But the final act blows the film wide open, revealing that Keeper isn’t just a haunting — it’s a centuries-spanning power struggle between humans and supernatural offspring.
Malcolm’s Secret: The Immortal Manipulator
Perkins reveals late in the film that Malcolm is no ordinary physician. Instead, he is an immortal predator who has spent 200 years luring unsuspecting women to the cabin to sacrifice them to a brood of forest-born monsters.
Through a flashback, we learn that Malcolm and his cousin once captured a pregnant woman trespassing on their land in the 1800s. She wasn’t human — or at least not entirely. Upon giving birth, she unleashed a litter of grotesque, otherworldly creatures. In exchange for women to feed on, the monsters granted Malcolm and his cousin eternal life.
Those horrifying spirits Liz has been seeing? They’re the remnants of past victims — women Malcolm brought to the cabin for slaughter, their tortured souls condemned to linger on the land.
