“Together”: Love Hurts, Sticks, and Sometimes Chainsaws

Every once in a while, a low-budget horror film sneaks up on us and reminds audiences that creativity, commitment, and sheer audacity can outshine any Hollywood spectacle. Michael Shanks’ Together is exactly that kind of film.

Shot in Melbourne for just $3.5 million and already grossing close to $28 million worldwide, this queasy little gem has earned its cult status — not only because of its bizarre premise and nightmarish imagery, but also because of the fearless performances at its core.

Real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie don’t just star as Tim and Millie, they also produced the film, throwing themselves body and soul into one of the most grotesquely funny, oddly moving love stories you’ll see all year.

Yes, controversy has shadowed Together. The producers of 2023’s Better Half have filed a lawsuit, claiming Shanks’ script “ripped off” their concept of a couple fused together, right down to a cheeky Spiceworld album gag. Brie, Franco, and Shanks maintain the idea was independently created and registered with the Writers Guild of America as early as 2019. Wherever the courts land, one thing is undeniable: Together is a bold, original execution of a very old idea — that love is about becoming one, even when it’s messy, suffocating, and terrifying.

The story begins deceptively ordinary. Tim (Franco), a fading rocker still clinging to his teenage dreams, and Millie (Brie), a steady schoolteacher, leave the city for a quiet life in the countryside. Their relationship is fraying: he feels emasculated and lost, she feels lonely and unappreciated. A hike through the woods in the middle of a storm leads them to a cavern, marked by cult-like carvings and a dangling bell. When Tim drinks from a pool inside, he unleashes something ancient and horrifying. By morning, the couple finds their legs literally fused together. What starts as a grotesque gag quickly spirals into obsession: an unstoppable, supernatural pull to merge — physically, emotionally, spiritually — until there may be nothing left of either of them.

Adding to the unease is Millie’s colleague Jamie (Damon Herriman), who drops unsettling references to Plato’s Symposium and its myth of soulmates: that humans were once whole beings with four arms and four legs, split apart by the gods, destined to spend their lives searching for their “other half.”

In Together, that theory becomes terrifyingly literal. What if finding your other half means consuming them? What if the dream of perfect love becomes a nightmare of codependency, obsession, and suffocating flesh?

What makes the film truly sing (and squirm) is its tone. Together is unabashedly body horror — full of sticky prosthetics, pulsing wounds, and practical effects that will make even hardened gorehounds flinch — but it’s also weirdly hilarious. Shanks embraces the absurdity of the premise without undercutting its dread. One minute you’re gagging at a chainsaw-fueled bloodbath, the next you’re laughing at Tim and Millie casually eating snacks on the floor, their faces smeared in gore as if nothing happened. It’s that balance — terror and absurdity, love and revulsion — that makes the film irresistible.

Franco and Brie are magnetic. Franco leans into Tim’s man-child immaturity and panic with surprising vulnerability, while Brie grounds Millie with quiet strength and simmering frustration. Together, they sell both the comedy and the horror of their predicament, their chemistry so lived-in that even their bickering feels authentic. Their real-life partnership bleeds into the fiction in the best possible way: you believe in their love, even as you’re horrified by how it manifests.

Shanks’ direction is confident, especially for a debut. He knows when to lean into claustrophobic dread, when to unleash slapstick gore, and when to let silence carry the weight. Wyatt Garfield’s cinematography turns suburban houses and wooded trails into landscapes of menace, while the script (regardless of the ongoing lawsuit) cleverly uses Plato’s soulmate myth as both a thematic backbone and a twisted punchline.

In the end, Together is more than just gross-out spectacle. It’s a wickedly funny, unnervingly romantic parable about the dangers of losing yourself in someone else. Love can make you feel whole, but it can also swallow you alive. Shanks, Brie, and Franco take that idea literally — and the result is sticky, scary, and strangely sweet.

If you’ve got a strong stomach and a taste for the bizarre, Together is a midnight-movie delight that deserves to be seen with a crowd. Bring your friends, brace yourself for chainsaws and cult symbols, and prepare to laugh, scream, and squirm in equal measure. Love has never been this messy — or this much fun.

My favorite quote:
Millie: Promise me one thing.
Tim: Anything.
Millie: You’ll make my final post ‘brb dying’.