Keeper ending explained: Tatiana Maslany unpacks final scenes and what's next for Liz

(**WARNING: Contains major spoilers for Keeper**)

If you've seen any of Longlegs director Osgood Perkins's previous horror films, you'll know by now that he's a master when it comes to building unnerving atmospheres and crafting memorable, unsettling images.

That's certainly the case in his latest effort, Keeper, which stars Tatiana Maslany and has just arrived in UK cinemas. The chiller sees Maslany take on a character called Liz, who decamps to a cabin in the woods owned by her doctor boyfriend Malcom (Rossif Sutherland) to celebrate their one year-anniversary, only for things to turn out rather different than she'd planned.

It's immediately clear that something is a little off. Liz keeps seeing some very strange visions, especially after Malcom explains that he must leave for an urgent work-related matter, and the strange behaviour exhibited by his cousin Darren (Birkett Turton) only adds to the unease.

Eventually it all leads to a frightening – if rather exposition-heavy – reveal, before a final act that includes some truly terrifying creatures.

"There was a big shift in terms of the creature design, because initially this film was a tiny little budget film," Maslany explained during an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com. "And then obviously [distributor] NEON came out and bought it and changed the fabric of the film in so many ways, and allowed it to be bigger than than it had previously been."

She added that when she'd film the creature scenes, the beasts "were, like, practical masks and things like that" – so she got a major fright when she watched the finished film for the first time.

"When I finally saw the creatures, I think it was when they screened the final cut. And to me, I was like... I can't wait to hear what people's ideas are on what that means, what that final boss means, because there's something about that doubling effect and the faces within a face that are just like... [chef's kiss].

"When I saw it, I wanted to read 900 books about horror and about symbols and I was just, like, there's so much here and I'm curious about how people are going to interpret it."

Need some help unpacking the final moments of the film? Read on to have the Keeper ending explained, with more exclusive insights from Maslany.

Keeper ending explained: What was going on at the cabin?

After things get increasingly eerie – and Liz's visions get increasingly extreme – we finally learn what has been going on at the cabin when Malcolm reveals all.

It turns out everything has its roots in an incident that occurred two centuries ago. You see, Malcom – and his cousin Darren – are both actually 200 years old.

Turns out, when they were kids they'd shot a pregnant woman – one who looked strikingly similar to Liz, might we add – who they believed to be trespassing on their property, and dumped her in a pig sty. Only, it turned out this was no ordinary woman, and before she succumbed to her wounds she gave birth to some sort of demonic entity which has been stalking the property ever since.

In order to appease this presence, Malcolm and Darren have been regularly luring women to the property and sacrificing them to feed the demon, in exchange for their own eternal life and youth. All those woman Liz has been glimpsing in her visions throughout the film? They're the previous victims.

How does Liz triumph over Malcolm?

Up until this point, it appears that Malcolm and Darren have always had their way, but things have changed with Liz. Malcom had suspected this might be the case when his usual plan to drug her with a chocolate cake didn't go to plan, but it ends up going even more awry for the supposed doctor than he could have possibly imagined.

After the freaky creatures reveal themselves to Liz, rather than devouring her, they appear to embrace her – seemingly transfixed by her resemblance to their mother. And so Liz joins forces with them, possibly possessed, and turns Malcolm's tricks right back on him.

No longer with the promise of immortality, she finds him in the woods, force feeds him some of that cursed chocolate cake and dunks his head in a bucket containing a mysterious substance – seemingly consigning him to his death as she walks away.

There are numerous ways in which this could be interpreted, but Maslany has her own read, as she explained to RadioTimes.com.

"I enjoy a lot about that ending," she said. "I don't think it's necessarily a hopeful ending. To me, it just gets so many ideas going in my head about the roles that we have been predetermined societally to play and also the horror of domesticity – like the terror of not knowing who your partner is.

"And the male legacy that sort of... I think we're definitely facing a lot of that," she added, "I mean, we always have, but just it feels very zeitgeisty to be like this man who wanted to live forever, and used women to give him life, to make him live forever, and they were expendable. And so it's interesting that Liz doesn't fit into that box for whatever reason, and kind of changes the pattern."

Asked about why Liz resembles the woman Malcolm had shot all those years ago – essentially bringing everything full circle – Maslany was less sure.

"[There's] sort of like these echoes of other women's experiences in our bodies and in our lives," she said. "I don't know what it means that Liz looks like that woman, or was that woman. Is she just doomed to be this, or is this like an ending of something for Malcolm? Is she powerful at the end, or is she stuck?"

It's certainly a film that leaves the audience with a lot of questions, and your own takeaway might differ from that given by Maslany. One thing's for sure, no-one who watches Keeper will be forgetting those bizarre creatures in a hurry...

Keeper is now showing in UK cinemas.

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