Rayve777

Together was ultimately a very frustrating experience for me, because for every piece of genuinely interesting filmmaking and concepts from writer/director Michael Shanks, there's an equal amount of horror cliches that I've already seen a hundred times. This isn't really helped by the fact that the "twist" is straight up spoiled by every piece of marketing material, despite the movie trying it's best to throw whatever doubt it can during the first act. When it actually gets into actually exploring the body horror, it becomes somewhat interesting again, with a healthy mix of genuine squeamishness and black comedy, although it's far from being the most graphic or disturbing offering in this subgenre.

The acting is generally fine, but does get underminded by the script shoehorning in some of the most obvious foreshadowing of all time. I did find Dave Franco's performance the most amusing since he ends up whipping out a discount Jesse Pinkman voice towards the end of the film, whether that was intentional or not.

While I ultimately didn't hate my experience with Together, I do think that most people will probably end up coming out of this film disappointed, especially due to the intense hype of this supposedly being "the scariest movie of the year". I think that director Michael Shanks definitely has potential to make something truly great if he tries, since this is his debut full-length feature. Here's to hoping that Mr Shanks is able to find his own voice in cinema.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character Wendy might just be my favorite character in this franchise so far, she portrays the fear and guilt of not fully grasping Death's design near perfectly, especially when interacting with the rest of the cast. It wouldn't shock me if this is the performance that convinced Tarantino to cast her in Death Proof, it's that good.

The film does have a better pace than the previous film, but even still the foreshadowing of how the kills will happen are still rather on the nose, not quite reaching the unpredictable highs of the first. A lot of the CGI is also pretty dated in a lot of places, especially during the beginning roller coaster premonition and the train at the end, but doesn't take me out of the experience too much.

For a film called The Monkey it ironically doesn't go bananas enough. The main problem with this film is that it really has only two jokes: people randomly dying in ultragory ways and people randomly screaming "fuck" or other profanities. It's kinda cute the first time you hear it, but by the 15th time, it makes you want to be the one to be randomly killed to relieve yourself of the pain. This leads to the more serious and heartfelt moments to not be taken seriously, as since you know that a le epic Marvelesque quip is going to happen at any second.

Just watch Final Destination if you wanna get your "death is inescapable" fix.