People usually seek reviews to determine if a movie is worth seeing. Other times, people need someone to talk to after watching a movie. This review attempts to serve both audiences, but to really talk about this movie requires SPOILERS.
This review is structured so that the reader can bail out before the spoilers, so look for the signs if you want to dodge them.
Together (Spoiler Free)
Horror often thrives on metaphor. Metaphor implies significance. Together (2025) director Michael Shanks takes on the massive and smothering specter of relationships devolving into codependency. In telling this story, he pushes the metaphor into grotesque body horror.
Being Together
Alison Brie and Dave Franco play Millie and Tim, a couple retreating to the countryside to repair what’s left of their fraying bond. Instead of finding healing, they find themselves literally fusing together, their bodies twisting and merging into fleshy grotesques. It’s the twisted emotional backdrop that horror fans salivate over. It’s love made suffocating, commitment made flesh.
Is it the massive pull of their love causing this fusion? Is it the pain and torment of losing one’s self that is causing the melding of flesh? Or, is drinking some nasty water from a hole in the ground that belies this biological amalgamation?
Which one these would be the most disappointing?
Watch Together (2025)
Chemistry Lacking
One of the key selling points of this film is that is built on real world relationship of Allison Brie and Dave Franco. This purports to bring a meta-authenticity to the film. It makes for a great headline, but fails to materialize on screen. It’s not that the performances are terrible, they just lack the connective tissue (pun intended) to make their relationship worthy of investment.
The character of Tim Brassington (Franco) comes off as mostly unlikable and possessing the depth of Saran Wrap. Giving the benefit of the doubt, these dynamics are likely by design, but it’s really difficult to stake any emotional claim in his plight.
On the flip side, Alison Brie’s character and performance as Millie Wilson provides one of the most compelling reasons to watch this film. In contrast her character has depth. She suffers unrequited love. She has unfulfilled dreams. She wears these emotions on her face and body.
Where this imaginary couple fails is convincing the audience that there relationship is redeemable, much less worth redeeming.
Body Horror – Fumbling the Basics
The hallmark of any self-respecting body horror movie lies in the special effects. While it’s not an absolute, the visceral reality of practical effects seems to resonate with these films. This film does have practical effects, but overall, they lack punch. That is not to say that there aren’t cool moments, but this film should be brimming with melded and undulating skin.
Where the film really fumbles is that as the movie ascends towards its climax, the special effects department leans into to CGI for what should be some of the most compelling scenes in the films, and they fail to dazzle. It’s not necessarily that these scenes were done in CGI and therefore they are bad. It has more to do with the fact that they are uninspired and done in CGI.
Every body horror film doesn’t need to be The Substance (2024), but it’s a worthy goal.
Yeah, I’m not drinking that water, either should you
Dissatisfying to Say the Least
Overall, this movie misses. Fans of body horror might find something that they like, but assuredly more compelling options exist. The film promises to make a statement about the loss of self when humans connect on a higher level. Yet, it fails to even demonstrate a believable relationship and then wraps its story with a cockamamie plot device involving a puddle of water.
In body horror, poorly executed special effects may be excusable due to miniscule budgets. Together doesn’t get that pass.
Want something a bit more profound (and harder to watch), you might try Thanatomorphose (2012).
Extended Review (Spoilers Abound)
Profundity in horror comes with great risk and greater responsibility. When it lands, it can propel a film to the zenith of horror greatness. When it doesn’t, it leaves behind a vacuum that is hard to fill. This film lands squarely in that later camp.
Going back to the lofty metaphor, relationships are hell and they are tantamount to a sacrifice of self. When we choose our other, we smolder into a pulsating ball of lowest common denominator. While awfully nihilistic, its a deep subject that is worthy of a horror treatment. However, it is a metaphor that is built on the gravity of relationship.
As discussed before, the relationship between Tim and Millie barely meets the bar of significance and their backstory is almost non-existent. Furthermore, there is really no deep conflict to speak of other than this seemingly disconnected trope involving Tim’s mother refusing to leave his dead and rotting Father’s side. It makes for a cheap jump scare and just barely fits the narrative. It feels clumsy and opportunistic.
Drawing Parallels
Beneath the surreal imagery lies a story so flimsy it can barely prop up its own metaphor. The “couple in the countryside” setup is horror shorthand for “Whatever was going bad yesterday is about to get worse”, and the film never truly subverts this hokey implication.
The first act builds promise because we can see the emotional underpinnings that will drive the second act, but second act foregoes this potential in favor of a ridiculous cult / religion trope.
On a hike through the wood, Tim and Millie get lost just before falling into a sink hole. In that sinkhole is the remains of a former hippie church and a mysterious pool of water that not only causes flesh to meld, but also creates some sort of gravitational force that pulls Millie and Tim together. So yeah, this deep emotional metaphor gives way to woo-woo.
Contrasting this film to another, in Thanatomorphose (2012) the audience never really gets confirmation of the cause of the protagonists decline. That mystery breeds curiosity. Curiosity breeds metaphorical significance. This is not to suggest that Thanatomorphose is a superior film as it has its own problems. At least Thanatomorphose tries to operate on a higher plane of thought. It certainly demands more of its audience.
The Mystery That Shouldn’t Be
The moment Together (2025) introduces a crazy hippie church in the woods it assumes responsibility to unpack some sort of lore. All it give is a one-liner that people were originally whole, but Zeus split them in two. People spend the rest of their lives looking for their other half.
Ok, fine. Then what is the church? What is the water? Why is it in the State of Washington? What is up with this mysterious force that literally drags people across the floor? Does drinking the water create the force? Was it just blind luck that these characters were their perfect halves? Why were they lucky enough to find the water?
Weak. Lazy. Cue Jazz Hands.
It appears that Michael Shanks so enamored with his metaphor that he abandons it.
This leaves Together stranded between two tales. It serves as an attempt to embody the horror of intimacy while also serving as a middling relationship drama that leans too heavily into hippie hand waviness.
Together is not a disaster. It’s an otherwise well made film with some visually compelling bits. But it is also a narrative trainwreck that fails to commit to its premise. It is more of a lazily stitched quit of incomplete ideas. For those who crave disturbing imagery, it might satisfy, but there are far better films out there. I’d watch The Substance (2024) 10 times before picking this one up again.
Together (2025) - Bodily Fusion That Fails to Stick - Malevolentdark
Director: Michael Shanks
Date Created: 1970-01-01 00:33
2.5