'Together' - Another good entry to the Aussie horror catalogue.

Josh
Aug 23, 2025
3 min read

Updated: Sep 10, 2025

Michael Shanks (2025)

V-line Train cameo!

Another entry into the Australian film scene, Michael Shanks makes his feature film debut with Together. A body horror film that can proudly sit alongside this year's Bring Her Back (Danny and Michael Philippou, 2025). And another one for Neon, for creating a marketing program that sticks in your brain. Since seeing Bring Her Back, I’ve had the image of eyelashes reaching out and getting entangled with each other, with the backing track of Happy Together by The Turtles. This is another testament to Neon’s marketing team; between this, Longlegs (Oz Perkins, 2024) and The Monkey (Oz Perkins, 2025), they demonstrate a knack for captivating an audience. And did the movie hold up to the marketing, unlike, for me at least, Longlegs and The Monkey? It did. It didn't do anything unpredictable or groundbreaking. But Shanks had a concept and executed on it well enough.

Together, Tim (Dave Franco) and Millie (Alison Brie) kick off the film as a couple making the move from the city to a smaller town out in the sticks. However, neither is on the same page about their relationship. Tim is struggling to make a living with his indie music, in contrast to Millie, who is moving forward in life with a job as a teacher, which is the reason for the move. Further strain enters their relationship with Tim struggling to do anything intimate with her, causing them to question their life together. The setup reminds me very much of Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019), where we have a couple that’s on the verge of a breakup, yet both couples are too scared to fully commit to ending the relationship. Even down to one of them having a traumatic incident that adds further complications to their situation. In Together’s case, Tim is dealing with a memory of finding his mother in bed with the rotting corpse of her husband, being too scared to remove the body. Triggering his struggle to get close to Millie.

Until a hike goes wrong, they get trapped in a cave overnight that contains the pews and minor structural elements of a sunken old church. A visually interesting location with furniture merged into the walls and floor. The stone looks organic with vines leading into a small pool of water that, when drunk, causes people to want to be as long as they can with another person. From this premise, Shanks can create some memorable set pieces with each couple being more and more reliant on being near/close to each other. Ranging from small, simple moments, such as Tim mimicking Millie's movements violently in the shower. Or Millie pressing herself right up to a frosted glass door. To elaborate on moments where they contort their sleeping bodies down a hallway to begin to merge their bodies. With great physical performances from both Franco and Brie. Unless I missed a piece of information, leading up to and after this scene, I was thinking they were going to be struggling to stay apart. Or when they are apart, they'll be controlling each other. But that gimmick felt inconsistent.

Brie’s performance as a girlfriend who’s trying to keep the relationship going but is on the brink of snapping over her distant boyfriend. In which she gets more and more worn down mentally and physically. I wish I could say the same for Dave Franco. He felt very one-note for me. While Brie felt like she had subtleties in her discovery of their situation, Dave jumped from mumblecore hipster to constant focal fry yelling. Also distracting, being filmed in the outer Melbourne region, we have some local talent make an appearance. The strangely charming and therapeutic Jamie, played by Damon Herriman, managed to blend in with the leads wherever in the world they’re meant to be. Although Mia Morrissey, Millie's friend, is distractingly Aussie. Whether that was intentional, I’m not sure, but it had me constantly asking, Where are we? Also, a cameo from a Vline train, shoutout.

Although Shanks has something to say about committing to a relationship but as well as the ritualistic expectation of where relationships go, mixed with a Cronenberg aesthetic mixing body horror and sex, it didn’t captivate me. In saying that, it’s probably the closest thing I’ve seen relating to Cronenburg being more down to Earth rather than going over the top with body horror. With the final merge of Tim and Millie, Shanks leaves the door open for an allegory for transitioning; either can be seen as trans or non-binary.