[Editor’s Note: The following contains spoilers for Together]
Everyone knows that one codependent couple, but what would happen if that attachment manifestedphysically? That’s the idea that inspired writer-directorMichael Shanksto createTogether, a body horror starring real-life married coupleAlison BrieandDave Franco.
Shanks' debut feature with Neonfollows joined-at-the-hip couple Millie (Brie) and Tim (Franco) as they move away from everything they’ve ever known to a remote country home. Here, in the middle of nowhere, their strained relationship is put to the test, but tensions rise when the couple comes in contact with something mysterious and unnatural that forces them to get closer than ever before.
Talking with Collider’sPerri Nemiroff, Shanks shares the details of that first idea that sparkedTogether’s grotesque plot, and howBrie and Franco influenced the energyon set. The filmmaker also shares how he and the crew broughtthe grisly transformationsto life using a blend of practical and digital effects, how the “heyday of body horror” in the ’80s affected the concepts, and what he hopes to do next. Check out the full conversation in the video above, or you can read the transcript below.
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“The whole vibe on set was great, and I credit that to Dave and Alison.”
PERRI NEMIROFF: I wanted to start with you being a first-time feature filmmaker, because when you’re in that position, getting a movie off the ground isn’t easy, but even once you do, being a leader on a set when it’s your first time can be a very intimidating thing. But, you had Dave and Alison in your corner. What is something that they did for you as a first-time feature filmmaker that not only teed you up for success while making your movie, but also let you do it with confidence?
MICHAEL SHANKS: The whole vibe on set was great, and I credit that to Dave and Alison. We had crew on the film that have been working on film sets for 40 years that came up to me after the first day, being like, “These are the best bloody actors we’ve ever bloody worked with,” because they’re in Australia and they talk like that. But they were just professional. They were fun. This was a low-budget film. We only had 21 days to shoot the thing. And so, there were days where we were running, trying to just get the final shot of the day, andyou’d look over and Dave’s carrying a light, and Alison’s moving the negative.It kind of felt like a big student film in a way. Everyone was just excited and passionate and just helping out any way they could.
I want you to have all the resources you want, but that particular vibe is one of my absolute favorites on set.
SHANKS: Yeah, it’s great. I mean, it would have been amazing to have $100 million, but I feel like then there’s probably people breathing down your neck a lot more, and we were just kind of left alone to sort of do our thing, and it was really, really sweet.
The more important thing is that the movielookslike it costs $200 million.
SHANKS: Yeah! Thank you.
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It All Began With That Horrifying Hallway Scene
The John Carpenter vibes inspired Shanks to expand the story.
Leaning into the story now, this is one of my absolute favorite questions to ask when I become totally obsessed with a concept. What was idea number one, the thing that started this all, but then also, I want to know if you had a break-story moment, something you came up with along the way that made it feel whole to you?
SHANKS: Oh, so many of both of those things. The first scene I wrote in the film, for anybody who’s seen it, was the hallway sequence, because once I had the idea of, like, “Oh, what if a couple was so committed, so enmeshed that their intertwined lives started to manifest in kind of a physical, fleshy way?” I was like, “What would the scene look like?” And so the very first scene I wrote was the hallway scene where they kind of come together for the first time. I wrote that, and I was reading it, and I was like, “Oh, I like this scene. This scene is good. Let’s write the movie now.” I was like, “Oh,that’s a cool kind of John Carpenter sort of set piece.” And I was so happy with that.
But over the course of years of developing and rewriting the script, there was a little element that I added relatively late, which was this sort of backstory, adding some lore to the horror concept, which was the way that the supernatural stuff begins in this cave. It was originally just this deep Lovecraftian cave, but then on like the fourth draft or something, I was like, “What if somebody had built a church above the cave and it had been swallowed by the cave?” And then I started to think, “Maybe there’s some kind of cult element or this or that.” And that was sort of where I felt like I really kind of elevated it into, like, “Okay, cool. This is much more thought-out than I expected from my dumb brain.”
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Designing ‘Together’s Gruesome Transformations
Shanks wanted to avoid this ’80s element from the “heyday of body horror.”
I’ll lift the spoiler warning at this point, so you can talk about these next points freely.
SHANKS: Of course.
First, I’m really curious about the design for when they start to come together. Is that something that you always knew exactly how you wanted it to look, or was there any trial and error with that?
SHANKS: There was definitely trial and error. We had some amazing concept artists. This is my first film, and just having concept artists make art. You get an email attached with something from your imagination being drawn by somebody impossibly more talented than you, and I couldn’t believe that. But my direction to the department heads on how I wanted the body horror to work was in contrast to the sort of heyday of body horror, like the ‘80s stuff. I didn’t want this to feel like a kitschy throwback. In the ‘80s, I feel like a lot of the body horror was kind of glossy and slimy, andI wanted this to feel kind of dry and painful. Those were the words that I gave to the department heads on it.
So, we have some amazing practical and digital effects in this. We’d have the puppets, but we wouldn’t be coating them in slime. I wrote in the script that when the hands come together for the first time, I have a really distinct memory from an uncle of mine shaking my hand as a kid, going way too hard, and all these bones kind of collapsing, sort of like you were crushing an umbrella that had closed, and I was like, “That’s what I want it to feel like.”
Next time someone shakes my hand, I’m going to think about this.
You brought up the fact that you’ve got visual effects and practical effects here. Can you give us an example of a specific scene where we can see a little bit of both and tell us where you draw the line in that respect?
SHANKS: The final transformation was visual effects, absolutely, because it was so hard to do it. We do have a practical effect in that. We do have a practical leg puppet that was fun that Alison was wearing, but everything else has a practical basis that was then often augmented by visual effects.
There is a shot of a penis in the film that was literally a dildo on some bicycle shorts, and in visual effects that I did myself, I had to take out the bicycle shorts element of that and replace it with skin so it looked real. So, I was at home frame by frame, rotoscoping out pubic hair and testicles and being like, “See, mom? I made it! I’m a big-time Hollywood director. Look at me go.”
[Laughs] Movie magic at its finest!
This is more of a what-if question, but again, I’m obsessed with this concept. How do you think the story progression would have changed if Millie never drank the water?
SHANKS: I don’t know. One of the things when breaking the script was thinking, “What’s the third act?” Because I knew it needed to be a slow progression of an infection. If they started to fuse at the end of act one, then that movie’s too silly. That’s probably a comedy. But having this kind of slow build — what’s the third act? And I was like, “Oh, it would be so tempting to make him sort of villainous, to turn Tim into a monster that has to almost consume her, like his thirst for her becomes so vociferous.” But then I’m like, “Again, that would just be like he becomes the horniest guy.” I don’t know, it’d just be so silly.
That thought made me consider, what if it was a relationship between two people where someone was way more into it than the other. If that person drank the water, it’d just be the other person being followed around the entire movie, and that made me feel so uneasy!
SHANKS: Yeah, that would be horrible. The fate that befalls the missing hikers in our film is kind of that story. That’s sort of a story that happens in the background. The fate that’s left of the living hiker, the female version of that couple, is maybe the cruelest thing I’ve ever seen in a movie that I didn’t really intend. Like, she’s connected to her dead partner, unable to die, in my head, because she’s absorbing his nutrients, and then encounters Dave. David cuts off her fingers and leaves her in a dark hole to die. It’s just so sad! [Laughs]
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I’ll end with the greediest question in the world, but you can’t make a movie that I like this much and then not have me ask this. I’m very curious to hear what is next for you, especially because when I started doing some research, I found a brief description ofHotel, Hotel, Hotel, which not only sounds really exciting and hugely ambitious, but like an acting goldmine for a potential lead.
SHANKS: Thank you. I mean, I should be so lucky. I feel like the luckiest kid in the world because I got to makeamovie, so to make a second movie would be a dream come true. Hopefully, it would be this other script that I’ve written that people have kind of read around the town, but I’m not sure what’s next. It’s my goal to keep writing and keep directing, but we’ll see what happens.
