Writer-director Michael Shanks on body horror inspiration and the Japanese cult classic that still makes him queasy.
Together writer-director Michael Shanks has a background in VFX, which came in handy when making a body horror movie. While the vast majority of the effects in Together were practical, Shanks had an idea of how to seamlessly blend practical and VFX while in the early writing stages of the script. “I've always thought of visual effects as an extension of my writing skill,” Shanks explains. “I was never afraid to write in a sort of crazy, heightened direction because I knew how to do the visual effects myself. It was like this cheap resource for me, and so then when it came to writing this film, I think that really informed just never being afraid of going super crazy with it because I just have that attitude.”
And, we're not spoiling anything here because you can already tell from the trailers that they do indeed go “super crazy” with it. “That said, we had mostly practical effects for this film. We had some amazing visual effects sequences. I was fanboying out getting to work with Framestore to do these crazy body horror sequences, but also fanboying out about Larry Van Duynhoven, who was our prosthetics designer, making amazing puppets, prosthetics, and creatures.
“We wanted to do everything as practical as possible, but some of the stuff just works better as visual effects, like the bigger transformation moments in this film. There were other moments where it was fully practical. I got to become a practical effect myself. I got to go and sit in the chair and get covered in goo and get my head molded for this crazy creature at the end of the film, and that was such a dream come true.”
viewers may notice the director's cameo in the movie: “There are photos of me in the film. There's like a missing poster and I'm the guy that was being like, “Hi,” just like an absolute doofus, and then we kind of discover my bloated and deformed head at the end of the film, which is a great way to cameo as a director who cannot act, because I didn't have to do any acting
and I
could still sayI'm in a movie.”
Together is the type of storyline and visual spectacle that lends itself to a good time at the theater. The audience reactions will inevitably vary from gasps to groans and silent squirming in seats. How does Shanks feel about causing the audience to shift uncomfortably in their seats at his maniacal hand?
“I mean, it's incredible. It's like what you fantasize about when you're writing the movie, when you're shooting the movie, when you're editing the movie. This was a film so made for an audience. The first time I watched it with an audience was at our Sundance world premiere, so that was extremely stressful.
But the stress didn't last long as Shanks quickly realized the Sundance audience was responding as he'd hoped at certain markers in the film like a sort of litmus test. “There's kind of a moment five minutes in where there's a little laugh line and people laughed, and I thought, ‘Oh, that's pretty good.' Then five minutes later, there's a big scare and people went, ‘Whoo,' and I thought that's pretty good too. By that moment, I thought, ‘Oh, cool, this is working. The audience is leaning in.'“
While Together may not be big on jump scares, there are a few choice moments in the mix, and Shanks is (rightfully) very pleased with one in particular. “People talk about jump scares as though they're like crass. Sometimes they are, but there is a jump scare probably about the halfway point of the film that I'm so proud of. Every time I've seen it with a theater, people just fall out of their seats. It's great.”
Jump scares tend to get a bad wrap in the last decade or so in a climate where people refer to well made movies as “elevated horror” as though calling it what it is… “a horror movie” will somehow negate it. As a lifelong horror fan, Shanks knew there were certain jump scares he'd like to put into a horror movie if given the chance. “You don't want a movie that's kind of only got jump scares, and they can sometimes be irritating. Not to speak poorly of another film, but 13 Ghosts I find quite irritating because they just keep flash framing jump scares the entire time. I've been a horror fanatic my whole life, and so I've got in the back of my brain, ‘If I ever get to make a horror movie, I'll do this jump scare,' so to be able to put maybe four of them into this movie was just such a treat.”
And when it comes to keeping scenes in his back pocket for potential horror movies, Shanks has some bucket list kills he'd love to eventually see on the screen. “I've got a really good kill for a slasher movie that I don't think I'll ever make. A friend of mine's about to direct a slasher movie. I'm like, “Do this kill, it's going to be awesome. It'd be great. FANGORIA might even freaking write about it.”
“I have this scene in mind of somebody getting their arm caught off in a single slice that would sever their arm in three ways. That's all I'll say, but I think it's really fun.”
When it comes to body horror, there are obviously various types of gooey and squeamish things in the mix. Most of it doesn't bother Shanks, “I'm fairly immune to some of that stuff,“ he shares. But there is one bodily fluid featured in an all time favorite horror movie that freaks him out every time. “I am quite queasy when it comes to food, and vomiting, and that sort of thing. The worst thing I've ever seen in a movie… (compliment), is probably in Takashi Miike's Audition. There's a scene where a woman vomits in a bowl and then makes a man slurp the vomit out of the bowl. I can't watch that. That's one of my favorite movies, but that freaks me out. I could watch someone get stabbed in the eye and just be like, ‘Yeah, fine.‘ But just slurping up vomit, no way.
“I'm a huge hypochondriac, I have all these neuroses about eating and anxiety. Maybe that's why I was into the kind of body horror stuff of just being like, ‘Yeah, I don't like my body. It's gross. There's vomit in there. What if somebody vomits in a bowl and makes me lick it up?‘ I don't want to do that. Stop making me do that.”
In addition to Audition, Shanks also cites a Carpenter classic as an all time ultimate body horror inspiration.“The Thing is maybe my favorite film of all time. I mean, the most iconic body horror moment in that is when they go into the ribs. It's so crazy. The blood test scene, I love that whole sequence. I took the shot design of the jump scare from that scene for one of the jump scares in this, whereby a character is in focus and they're talking off-screen, but they're holding something in their hand that's going to scream at you and make you jump.
I kind of recreated that with a moment with a rat in this film of like, oh, it's so much scarier if you're looking at the scary thing, but the character is looking off-screen.I think it just catches you more off guard. Any moment from Alien or Aliens, any moment from the entirety of David Cronenberg's career.”
Aside from Carpenter and Cronenberg, there's another slightly more unexpected influence that took root in Shanks long ago. “Growing up, one of my favorite movies was Star Trek: First Contact. I love that movie. I absolutely love it. That's a movie full of body horror. It begins with Picard getting a needle in his eye, and then a little spider crawls out of his face, and then they're cutting human skin off someone and sticking it onto Data's arm and being weirdly sexual about it. It's like I watched it so much as a kid, and I think there's something about that movie that kind of infected my tastes.“
Weirdly sexual body horror, Together is now in theaters. Watch our full interview with writer-director Michael Shanks below. For more, check out our interview with Alison Brie and Dave Franco.
