Together (2025)

Together: Long Live Body Horror | 4/5

Written by Noah Dietz: 8/2/2025

I feel, as a general rule, we had moved away from body horror as a genre until the 2020s. Sure, there were a couple hits here and there, but most of them are more indie, and even fewer of those get any sort of wide release. Some hit the various streaming services, but all in all it’s hard to find something that makes a big splash. Even with some real sicko stuff like Possessor on the field, it wasn’t until The Substance hit theaters last September that I dared hope we might be back. I didn’t think we would get a truly insane, flesh-melting spectacle a la Brian Yuzna ever again but here it was, gaining five Golden Globe nominations, five Academy nominations, and winning one of each. It was a good time to be around; good things were happening in the horror sphere. That being said, I didn’t expect to get another of these any time soon, but imagine my shock when I saw my first trailer for Together, coming out within a year of The Substance and bringing an energy I wasn’t sure what to do with.

From the very start, I was thrilled to see that Together seemed to be incredibly well written. Dave Franco plays a fantastic wet rat of a man in Tim, with Alison Brie playing his clearly more capable partner, Millie. While I was generally unaware of Brie’s work before, I’ve recently fallen in love with the type of dirtbag that Franco has been bringing to the table recently (I implore you to watch Love Lies Bleeding). Dominating this very solid script together, they deftly deliver a wonderful balance between tense relationship moments and honest-to-god funny moments. Brie and Franco manage to portray a believable couple who are struggling with a stagnating relationship that’s ten years in with no goal in sight. The tackling of what grief can do to a couple who have been in a long-term relationship can be difficult to convey in a believable way, but the chemistry they have managed to heighten their moments of friction to even higher levels. Their conflicts all feel natural, even with supernatural accelerant being thrown on, causing you to root for them to overcome themselves even in their worst moments. 

I’m thrilled to also be able to say we’ve got some honest-to-god scares in here as well. We have a couple great shots that are profoundly upsetting scattered through the film, in addition to some wonderfully executed jumpscares. I didn’t feel like any of them were cheap or unearned, personally. The knowledge that the film was willing to hit you with a jump here and there kept high tension in areas that nothing was even happening, just knowing that there could be something in the shadows, waiting. For example, an underrated fear that this utilizes is the uncomfortable nature of large, old houses in the woods. I haven’t had childhood fear unlocked with this much subtlety in a long time. Just walking around the house brought an unease, furniture casting humanoid shapes in the shadows that lend to the “off” atmosphere we’ve cultivated. I knew we weren’t in a movie with hauntings or things of that nature, but due to a couple of scenes in the front half I kept finding myself looking over everyone’s shoulder. I couldn’t help but wait to see if we were in another scene where I had to be careful and on the lookout for something new.

And don’t get it twisted, we’re not in a bleak and miserable body horror flick like Infinity Pool; there’s a plethora of actual laugh out loud lines in this. There’s a couple recurring bits that caused their fair share of nudges to my friends in the theater. Natural conversations with moments that felt like small in-jokes are peppered throughout as well, giving a lived-in feeling to a lot of scenes that could have felt stagnant otherwise. Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised that I had minimal complaints here. The film has been sitting in my head these last few days, and the more time I’ve had away from it the more my appreciation of the film has grown. It isn’t perfect, but it really worked for me.

Of course the core theme that is hinted at in the trailers is a fun one. Even going in having seen the trailer, I don’t at all feel you’ll be misled or spoiled at all. This, for me, is a shockingly strong entry to this year’s selection of horror films that begs to be seen on a large screen that looms over you. You owe it to yourself to be fully encompassed by the uncomfortable scenes. We’re in the return of body horror with a budget, and I hope this is just the beginning of a larger trend.