Just when you think you’ve seen it all in horror, here comes a film in which the trailer shows you an extreme closeup of two people, face to face, their eyelids fusing together by the lashes. That brief image was enough to convince me that I had to see Together as soon as possible.
Directed by Sean Durkin and starring real life husband and wife Alison Brie and Dave Franco, it’s the kind of film that shows a shift in the body horror genre. What once leaned heavily on gore and gross-out special effects now feels sharper, classier, and more deliberate—despite what I just said about fusing eyeballs.
If you’ve caught The Substance, you’ll know roughly the territory. Body horror isn’t just there to gross you out anymore—it’s aiming higher and chewing on ideas about identity, relationships, the fragility of the self. In Together, the focus is the unnerving experience of being in a relationship so co-dependent that you start to lose your own identity. A change that happens so gradually it slips by unnoticed until it’s too late. It reminded me of that thing people say about a frog in boiling water (although this could just be me…). The idea of two people becoming one is taken literally, twisted into a metaphor about dependency and identity. And yes, a certain Spice Girls song sneaks in at just the right moment, surprisingly touching in more ways than one. It doesn’t have the same stylised cool as The Substance, but it has more heart.
Together isn’t a comedy, but it does have a sly sense of humour. Every so often absurdity creeps in, enough to cut the tension without tipping into parody. It’s the nervous “Oh god, what am I even watching?” laugh. Tim (Franco) once had dreams of being a rock star before settling into his relationship with Millie (Brie). As their relationship deepens, those ambitions vanish and he drifts into being a passenger in his own life. Millie, by contrast, clings onto more of her identity, and she craves the closeness Tim no longer seems able to give. He leans on her emotionally but recoils from her physically, and the harder she tries to bridge that gap, the wider it grows. It leaves them stranded—together, but completely out of sync.
When Millie takes a new job as a school teacher in a small town in what feels like the middle of nowhere, the couple become even more isolated—and more dependent on each other than ever before. Without spoiling too much, something happens, and they slowly become almost inseparable… literally. Structurally, Together keeps things tight. At around an hour and forty minutes, it feels like the right length: long enough to breathe, short enough not to outstay its welcome—or overstretch the metaphor.
Visually, the film is restrained but effective. Practical effects are used to maximum discomfort but never just for cheap shock. The gore and transformation beats are cringeworthy in the best way—gross, but never cheap. That said, there’s still plenty here for body horror fans who want the visceral stuff. The image that stuck with me isn’t even the most grotesque, but a quieter one: two people blurring into one presence. It’s ridiculous, yes, but also deeply horrifying. The kind of moment that latches onto your brain and makes you reflect. The domestic setting makes it worse. Bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms—the supposedly safe spaces of everyday life become the stage for the horror. There’s no haunted house or cursed village here, just the suffocating reality of a relationship gone too far.
If I have a gripe, it’s the ending. The messaging felt muddled, and I left the cinema not entirely sure what conclusion it was trying to land on. That said, I didn’t mind too much—my overriding thought was that I wanted to watch it again. Together is body horror with brains and more heart than expected. It’s grotesque in the best ways, never cheap, and the performances sell the madness completely.
Author: Ben, Marketing Department
