Flesh & bond
Strap: Some bonds never break… even when they should. Body horror Together unleashes terror on August 1
OB Bureau
Just when you thought you’d seen all body horror had to offer, Together creeps up with a sly grin, an underground spring, and a syrupy Spice Girls track to ask: what if codependency wasn’t just emotional, but… anatomical? Australian writer-director Michael Shanks blends grotesque body horror with romantic comedy to deliver one of the most original – and delightfully icky – genre mashups in recent memory.
Real-life couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco star as Millie and Tim, a pair whose long-term relationship is beginning to rot from the inside. Millie’s a teacher, Tim’s an out-of-work musician, and their new start in a quiet small town only seems to magnify their problems. During an exasperated moment early on, Millie wonders aloud whether it’d be better to break up now before it hurts more later. Turns out, breaking up may be less of an option than she thinks.
Their forest getaway takes a sharp, squelchy turn when they stumble into a cavern – the same ominous pit from the film’s prologue, where two search dogs drank from an eerie spring and later returned, bloodied and fused together. When one of our troubled lovers samples the same water, things get… attached. Quite literally.
What follows is a slow-burn descent into bodily madness as Millie and Tim begin to physically fuse. Shanks doesn’t just lean into the absurdity – he embraces it, revelling in a mix of practical effects and well-timed CGI that delivers goopy, gory thrills with tongue firmly in cheek. There are twisted limbs, conjoined mishaps, and repeated jokes about not being able to “get away” from each other, both figuratively and grotesquely literally.
And yet, amid all the madness, there’s heart. Franco and Brie share an easy chemistry that adds a surprising tenderness to even the most repulsive moments. A line like “I’ll never be free of you” hits doubly hard when said by a man literally stuck to his partner’s flesh.
Set in the deceptively scenic woods of Victoria (doubling for the Pacific Northwest), Together is less a cautionary tale and more a warped celebration of love’s messiest, most dysfunctional instincts. Think The Fly meets The Break-Up, with a dash of cultish mysticism. It’s disgusting, it’s funny, and somehow, it’s a little romantic.