As a huge fan of body horror and horror in general, I walked out of “Together” (2025) with that perfect feeling of complete bewilderment mixed with genuine admiration. You know that specific sensation when a film is so completely unhinged that you’re not even sure what you just experienced, but you know it was something special? That’s exactly where I found myself after watching Michael Shanks’ directorial debut, and honestly, I had a blast with it.
What I Just Put Myself Through
Let me start with what actually happens in this film, because describing it feels almost impossible. Tim and Millie (played by real-life married couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie) are a decade into their relationship when they decide to move from the city to the countryside. Already, I could feel the tension building – anyone who’s been in a long-term relationship knows that “big change to save the relationship” energy. It’s immediately recognizable and uncomfortable.
Then they go on a hike. They find a cave. They encounter some mysterious water source. And suddenly, they’re literally stuck together – as in, physically unable to separate due to some kind of magnetic attraction caused by whatever they were exposed to.
I remember sitting in the theater thinking, “Oh, we’re really going there.” And we absolutely were.
The Director Who Made This Madness
Here’s what blew my mind: this is Michael Shanks’ first feature film as director. This Australian filmmaker previously created “The Wizards of Aus,” a comedy series about a wizard dealing with immigration bureaucracy in Melbourne. The leap from quirky comedy to visceral relationship horror is wild, but it makes sense when you think about his fascination with outsiders trying to fit into new environments.
His script “Hotel Hotel Hotel Hotel” made it onto the 2021 Black List of best unproduced screenplays, so he’s been building toward something big. “Together” premiered at Sundance 2025 in the Midnight section, which is exactly where a film this unhinged belongs.
Why This Hit Me So Hard
What I keep coming back to is how brutally honest this film is about long-term relationships, even wrapped up in all its grotesque imagery. Before any of the supernatural horror kicks in, I was already squirming at how accurately Shanks captured that suffocating feeling of being too close to someone while simultaneously feeling completely isolated from them.
The countryside move, the simmering resentment, the way Tim and Millie interact – it all felt painfully real. Then the film takes those very human relationship dynamics and literalizes them in the most disturbing way possible. You want to be closer to your partner? Here, be physically unable to separate. You feel trapped in your relationship? Now you’re actually trapped.
Critics have described how Shanks uses body horror to externalize the unspoken dynamics that undermine relationships. The disgusting entity binding Tim and Millie embodies their neediness for and resentment toward each other. As someone who loves when horror films use their genre elements as metaphor rather than just shock value, this completely worked for me.
The Meta Layer That Makes It Even Weirder
The fact that Franco and Brie are actually married adds this incredible layer of vulnerability that I couldn’t stop thinking about. Imagine putting your real marriage through this kind of cinematic exploration of codependency and resentment. The trust required for that is insane, and you can feel it in their performances. This isn’t just acting – it’s a real couple examining some of the darker aspects of long-term commitment through the lens of body horror.
One interview described it as “a body horror film facilitated by a real-life couple who put themselves through hell,” and that’s exactly what it feels like watching it.
How It Fits Into the Horror I Love
This film is being positioned as 2025’s answer to “The Substance,” and I can see why. Both films use extreme physical transformation to explore psychological themes, but where “The Substance” focused on beauty standards and aging, “Together” zeroes in on romantic codependency. It’s part of what feels like a renaissance of thoughtful body horror – films that use visceral imagery to make us confront uncomfortable truths rather than just trying to gross us out.
As someone who’s seen plenty of body horror that’s all style and no substance, I appreciated how “Together” earns every one of its shocking moments through genuine emotional investment. It’s operating simultaneously as gross-out horror, relationship drama, dark comedy, and existential nightmare. No wonder I walked out thinking “what the fuck did I just watch?”
Why It Sticks With Me
The more I think about “Together,” the more impressed I am with how Shanks managed to create something so completely insane while keeping it emotionally grounded. The horror becomes a magnifying glass for relationship dynamics we all recognize: the claustrophobia of codependency, the terror of truly knowing another person, the impossible desire for total unity with someone while maintaining your individual identity.
Shanks himself said something that really stuck with me: “No matter how intimate or close you can get with somebody, you can never actually be fully inside them or understand them… Short of crawling into someone else’s skin, their inner world remains clouded in mystery.” The film literalizes this impossible desire while showing how terrifying it would actually be if achieved.
The Human Core of the Madness
What elevates “Together” above typical body horror for me is its emotional honesty. Underneath all the grotesque imagery is a painfully real portrait of a long-term relationship hitting a wall. The supernatural elements don’t feel tacked on – they emerge organically from the very human tensions that are already present.
It’s couples therapy by way of David Cronenberg, asking uncomfortable questions about intimacy, dependence, and what happens when love becomes literally suffocating. The film uses the language of body horror to explore the often-unspoken dynamics that can undermine even the strongest relationships.
Final Thoughts on This Beautiful Nightmare
As a horror fan, I’m always looking for films that push boundaries while maintaining their humanity, and “Together” absolutely delivers on that front. It’s the kind of film that sticks with you not just because of its wild imagery, but because it taps into something deeply uncomfortable about love, intimacy, and the space between two people who share a life.
The fact that this is Shanks’ directorial debut makes it even more impressive. He’s announced himself as a filmmaker willing to explore the most uncomfortable aspects of human relationships through genre filmmaking, and I’m absolutely here for whatever twisted vision he comes up with next.
Walking out of that theater, I felt like I’d been through something genuinely transformative. “Together” is exactly the kind of “what the fuck did I just watch?” experience that reminds me why I love horror in the first place – it takes you somewhere completely unexpected and leaves you forever changed by the journey.
And honestly? I can’t wait to put myself through it again.
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