When you hear “home invasion thriller,” you don’t think Civil War period piece. But The Keeping Room willfully bends expectations by mixing genres—-predatory horror, revisionist western, feminist drama, and brutal cat-and-mouse thriller. The story focuses on the violent resilience and dramatic camaraderie of three Southern women as their home is besieged during the purges at the close of the American Civil War. Forced to defend their land and fight for their lives, the women take up arms against oppressors, shattering gender and genre conventions in the process.