Written and Directed by Michael Shanks | 102 min | ▲▲▲▲1/2 | VOD
One of my biggest gripes about horror movies as a genre is how few genuinely fresh ideas are produced within it. Filmmakers are inordinately satisfied with regurgitating the same jump-scares, the same stomach-churning gore, the same themes. So when someone shows up with something genuinely fresh, it’s a wonder. The Substance had freshness in its commitment to its vision, and shares with Together a love for the work of David Cronenberg. But what distinguishes Together is its delightful management of tone — this movie is scary, intriguing, charming, funny, and revolting — a fantastic mix.
The picture is also weirdly a romantic comedy. It stars marrieds-in-real-life Alison Brie and Dave Franco as Millie and Tim. She’s a grade school teacher and he’s a struggling musician living in the city. She gets a new gig at a small town school so they relocate to a gorgeous home in the woods. They bring their relationship problems with them… he won’t have sex with her and she wonders if they’re getting complacent. He’s struggling with some deep seated trauma. The sweet guy at her new school, Jamie (Damon Herriman). urges her to hang onto Tim.
Things get really weird when Millie and Tim go for a walk in the woods, picking up something that they bring back with them. I won’t say what it is, but it changes him, and then it changes her.
It’s hard to talk about too much without spoiling it, but something happens that makes the couple unable to stay apart for long — leading to some gruesome notes of body horror as flesh comes together — in both the visuals and excellent sound design.
Writer-director Shanks is well aware of the high concept here, which is another way of saying all this could fall from a great height, like an elaborate SNL sketch stretched to feature length. Instead he creates a plausible folk horror mythology beneath the text, leaning into sharp moments of visual humour, as well as coaxing performances from the lead pair that are occasionally self-aware, though not to the exception of what we’re here for — the deeply unnerving threads, mining audience fear around commitment, intimacy, identity, and co-dependency.
I’ve seen one quote suggesting this is a great date movie — on the contrary, this would terrify anyone one an early date with a prospective mate. It definitely won’t make you want to touch anyone after the lights come up.
