A gross however tremendous enjoyable horror flick anchored by fashionable course and rock-solid performances by its stars.
PLOT: A co-dependent couple (Alison Brie and Dave Franco) relocate to the countryside however uncover their devotion to one another could also be much more excessive than they thought when their our bodies begin to merge.
REVIEW: Together rocked the home right here at Sundance (and did the identical weeks later at SXSW). Premiering as a part of the midnight part, it’s a rock-solid physique horror romp that’s additional proof of the style’s revival and makes an arresting debut for writer-director Michael Shanks. Sporting the type of electrical vitality too usually lacking from horror films nowadays, with a propulsive tempo and elegance that jogged my memory of the perfect of eighties horror flicks, this can doubtless be a sizzling ticket merchandise for any massive distributor hitting Park City. Hopefully, anybody who buys it is going to give it a theatrical run, because it performs like gangbusters with an viewers.
In it, Tim (Dave Franco) and Millie (Alison Brie) are a pair at a crossroads. They’ve been collectively for a decade and nonetheless completely love one another, however because the outdated saying goes, familiarity breeds contempt. They haven’t been intimate in months. Tim nonetheless holds onto desires of being a rock star, regardless of being thirty-five and largely unemployed. At the identical time, Millie has a traditional job as an elementary college trainer and pushes him to cool down right into a life within the countryside away from the town. Not even with the ability to drive a automobile, Tim begins to really feel like a hostage, whereas Millie begins to really feel like she’s married to an everlasting adolescent.
One day, whereas mountaineering, they fall right into a cave and uncover a hidden, subterranean chapel. When they make the error of consuming from an underground physique of water, they begin to discover themselves inexplicably drawn to one another’s our bodies, and each time they attempt to separate, their pores and skin doesn’t need to let go.
While Together may have been a quiet, one-location piece, Shanks’s movie has a powerful scale, with glorious manufacturing design and a few actually nifty scares. Some of the perfect scenes depict Tim and Millie’s our bodies uncontrollably contorting as they’re attracted to one another like magnets. They use excessive techniques to separate themselves, which had the viewers hooting and hollering.
The casting of real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie is extremely potent, as their chemistry is so robust. In one other, extra typical horror movie, the couple would begin to hate or activate one another because the horror will get extra excessive. Instead, you by no means doubt Tim and Millie’s deep love for one another. Anyone who’s ever been in a long-term relationship will relate to the couple’s squabbles, as even in essentially the most loving relationship, the worry of dropping your individual id in favour of coupledom is an actual factor. Shanks’s film makes it literal, as their our bodies begin to turn into one. Gore hounds won’t be dissatisfied by a few of the extra nauseating scares, with glorious sensible results and a few well-placed bounce scares peppered in.
It’s a robust pivot to horror for Franco and Brie, who beforehand dipped their toe into the style with The Rental, which Franco directed. They produced this one and appear to have an actual love for the style. What’s refreshing about Together, particularly compared to extra cerebral current fare, is simply how enjoyable it’s – which is the side that made this really feel just a little bit like an eighties movie. It needs you to have an excellent time, and the viewers I noticed this can eat it up. Horror followers are going to have a blast.
