As they move to a new home in the countryside, longtime couple find themselves at a crossroads. With tensions already flaring, a nightmarish encounter with a mysterious force threatens to corrupt their lives. A film by Michael Shanks, starring Dave Franco, Alison Brie, and Damon Herriman.
TOGETHER
Michael Shanks
(2025)
A search party with dogs combs through the Mountain Crest trails in Fulton County, their radio chatter and calls for Simon and Keri hanging in the air. The couple, who recently moved to the area, has been missing for two weeks. As the search party presses on, two of the dogs find their way into an underground cave. Inside, they come across a mysterious pool of water and drink from it.
When the search is over for the day, Farmer (Sunny S Walia) whistles for his search dogs, signaling it’s time to go home. He’s surprised when his two dogs don’t react to his whistle. They are just staring at each other in a strange, unblinking silence. He brings the dogs back and puts them in their cage.
As the evening wears on, he becomes unsettled by their behavior. They lie perfectly still, their eyes locked on each other. That night, his daughter hears a whimpering sound from the cage. Concerned, she calls for her dad who goes to investigate. There, he stares in horror at what he sees. His two dogs have fused together, their bodies joined in a monstrous form.
At a going-away party, Millie Wilson (Alison Brie) decides to surprise her boyfriend Tim Brassington (Dave Franco). She kneels on one knee and proposes to him in front of all their friends. But Tim panics, freezes up, and the moment becomes awkward and embarrassing for Millie. Though he eventually says yes, the damage is done. Tim can’t seem to recover the situation, leaving Millie to question if he truly loves her.
After moving into their new house near the forest in Fulton County, the stench leads Tim to its source where he finds a pack of dead rats piled up on the ceiling above a pendant light. Later at the local school, Millie meets Jamie McCabe (Damon Herriman). He welcomes her warmly, mentioning that he was on the hiring committee and was excited she took the teaching position. When Millie mentions that she and her boyfriend just moved into the house at the end of Pitt Road, Jamie reveals that he’s their neighbor, living in the yellow house on the corner.
A quiet tension has settled between Tim and Millie ever since his parents passed away. While Tim struggles with his music career, Millie has tried to give him space to grieve and create. When she accepted the teaching job in the countryside, she hoped the change of scenery would help them both heal and maybe save their relationship.
The next day, the couple goes hiking on a nearby mountain trail when they stumble upon an overgrown path. Millie suggests they turn back, but Tim points to several bells with strange symbols hanging from the trees, insisting the path is marked and safe. He persuades Millie to follow it. As a sudden rainstorm hits, they lose their way and accidentally fall into an underground cave.
Unable to get a signal in the cave, they decide to wait for the rainstorm to pass. Parched, Tim spots a pool of water, but Millie refuses to drink from it. Tim hands her a bottle containing the last of their fresh water. Despite Millie’s warnings, Tim takes a risk and drinks from the mysterious pool. While they wait, Tim shares an unsettling detail he’s never told anyone before. He describes the night his parents died, a horrifying memory of finding his mother smiling next to the decaying corpse of his father.
While sleeping in the cave, Tim experiences an inexplicable nightmare where the entire cave is moving as if it’s alive and breathing. When they wake up the next morning, they find their skin has become sticky, causing Tim’s leg to adhere to Millie’s. When they pull apart, it’s a painful separation.
When Millie drives off to town by herself, Tim suddenly loses consciousness while in the shower. Tim’s body begins to move violently in the same direction Millie is heading, as if he is being pulled by an unseen supernatural force.
Written and directed by Australian filmmaker Michael Shanks in his directorial debut, TOGETHER is a supernatural body horror film that follows a couple who move to a quiet countryside town. When they accidentally discover a mysterious underground pool, what begins as a simple relocation spirals into a series of inexplicable and nightmarish events that threaten to consume their lives.
Alison Brie and Dave Franco deliver stellar performances, so unsettling and authentic with undeniable chemistry since they are actually a real-life married couple. I love how the film incorporates the myth from Plato’s “Symposium” about the origin of love, told by Aristophanes.
Aristophanes was an ancient Greek comic playwright from Athens. He is often called “The Father of Comedy” and is the most famous writer of Old Comedy in classical Greek literature. Aristophanes wrote about 40 plays, of which 11 survive virtually complete today. His comedies are known for their bold fantasy, political satire, explicit humor, and witty wordplay. Aristophanes skillfully blended humor with social and political commentary and was known for his sharp caricatures, including those of Socrates, Euripides, and politicians like Cleon. He also appears as a character in Plato’s “Symposium,” where he delivers a famous speech on love.
According to this myth, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs, and two faces on one head. These beings were spherical and could move by rolling. They were so powerful and strong that they challenged the gods. To punish them, Zeus split each being in half with his thunderbolt, creating the humans we know today with two arms and two legs. Each person is forever searching for their “other half” or their soulmate, which is considered the origin of love. When two halves find each other, they experience an overwhelming desire to be together and become one again.
The movie has several disturbing and visceral moments that feel truly iconic. Two moments particularly stand out: Millie waking up to find Tim unconsciously swallowing her hair, and the scene where she floats against the door that separates them.
TOGETHER is an exceptional film built on ancient mythology using a convincing narrative and great practical effects, which makes the entire story feel genuinely believable. In my opinion, Tim and Millie’s story works effectively on its own without Tim’s tragic backstory or jump scares. I’m really looking forward to whatever Michael Shanks makes next.
TOGETHER premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on 26 January 2025. The film was theatrically released in the United States.
