Anybody who knows me will tell you… I avoid horror films like most people avoid expired milk. So naturally I approached Together with my guard up, expecting little more than some blood and gore, cheap scare tactics, and the odd well-timed jump to keep me awake. Yet within thirty minutes, I knew this was something different — something with far more to chew on than the trailers would have you believe.

Michael Shanks’s feature film debut (and final graduation from YouTube) doesn’t just avoid the worst horror clichés — it completely subverts the genre. Yes, there’s the inevitable body horror, but instead of using gore as the punchline, the film uses it as a metaphor. Here, horror is the language through which we explore something far more unsettling, and I daresay relatable: the slow erosion of a stagnating relationship.

The premise is deceptively simple. Millie (Alison Brie), a grounded English teacher, and Tim (Dave Franco), a musician whose career is circling the drain, move to the countryside for her new job. The cracks in their relationship are already showing. Their intimacy has vanished as Tim is left reeling from unresolved emotional trauma, resentment is creeping in, and both are quietly wondering if “I love you” has morphed into “I’ve grown used to you.”

Following an exploratory hike-gone-wrong in the woods surrounding their new home, Millie and Tim wake up to find their bodies literally beginning to fuse together. What begins as absurdly funny quickly becomes deeply uncomfortable — a physical manifestation of emotional co-dependency. The genius of Together lies in how it takes this grotesque setup and uses it to pose uncomfortable, relatable questions about love. The film’s real fear factor comes from recognising your own relationship history (or present) in Tim and Millie’s mess.

The performances are pitch-perfect. Brie and Franco’s real-life chemistry makes their fictional dynamic all the more believable. Their comedic instincts add levity without undermining the tension, and their physical performances sell every tangled, squirm-inducing moment in what feels like a kind of couples’ therapy wrapped in a grotesque fairy tale.

Together isn’t just another horror film. It’s a relationship drama, a dark comedy, and a surprisingly moving meditation on love, dependency, and the choice to either change, leave, or accept. For someone who doesn’t like horror, I left the cinema not only impressed, but with a renewed respect for what can be achieved with the genre.