Alison Brie and Dave Franco's horror movie Together has debuted with a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating following its premiere at Sundance.
The Community and The Disaster Artist actors, who are married in real life, play a couple moving from the city to the country. They've got their issues beneath the surface, and the tension is only exacerbated when a mysterious substance causes some erratic behaviour.
The film then turns into a science-fiction body horror, and given every critic who saw it at the film festival has so far given it a positive review (including one calling it "wild"), Together does science-fiction body horror very well.
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Here's what the first reviews are saying:
The Guardian
"Brie and Franco, making full use of the sweet and sour of their real lived-in chemistry, handle smugly in love as well as they do furiously on the edge and have fun with some wild, gasp-inducing moments, such as a nightmarishly uncomfortable sex scene."
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TheWrap
"Together combines the awkward experience of being in the room as a couple fights in front of you with a bold body horror premise that teeters just on the edge of being too cute by half. It begins like it's riffing on the classic The Thing before settling into something closer to nightmarish slapstick comedy — like the less creative though still plenty committed inverse of The Substance, with plenty of ridiculous scenarios."
Variety
"In an age when practical effects have become hip again, I appreciated that some of the film's handmade visual effects are ingenious, and a few are unabashedly cheesy; that used to be part of the fun of horror. Audiences should have fun with Together, a body-horror movie about a serious thing — love — that never takes itself too seriously."
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ScreenDaily
"Together comes together, in large part thanks to the nicely comic lead performances. Premiering in Sundance’s Midnight section, this crowd-pleasing picture will appeal to genre fans, especially those who prefer their horror amusingly (and sometimes nauseatingly) over the top. Brie and Franco, who also serve as producers, lend star power, and the film's catchy conceit could make this a fun date-night prospect for couples with a demented sense of humour."
RogerEbert.com
"This very smart horror-comedy could be the biggest hit to come out of this year's fest. Together is a body horror version of a relationship dramedy. With echoes of The Substance and the work of David Cronenberg, it is the rare body horror flick that actually delivers, turning viewers into squirming participants in the chaos. What I love most about (director Michael) Shanks' approach is how playful he is as a writer/director with the audience. We know where this is going more than the characters do, making us participants in the chaos."
Together premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. It does not currently have a release date.
Joe Anderton is a freelance news writer at Digital Spy, having worked there since 2016. In his time, he's covered a host of live events and interviewed celebrities big and small. A big fan of TV and movies both mainstream and obscure, Joe also enjoys video games and in particular PlayStation. Joe currently does not use Twitter, but he only ever used it to tell people to watch the film Help! I'm a Fish.
