From Addison Heimann comes a deliriously sensual and surreal exploration of trauma, addiction, and cosmic intimacy.
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Touch Me opens with a one-shot monologue of Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley), a savvy young woman explaining to her therapist the immensely sexual yet terrifying time she spent with Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci), a human-appearing space alien god with many sexually satisfying tentacles. While she implies that Brian went a step too far and hurt her during their encounter, her obsession with him is still very much present.
This powerful opening also succeeds in dropping viewers into the surreal world that writer and director Addison Heimann has created.
Joey is so matter-of-fact about having sex with a tentacled creature from space that the audience believes it; even her therapist believes it. Everything is a bit hazy or dreamy in Heimann’s world. Things are almost as we’d expect them to be in reality, but with a slight uncanniness that makes us wonder if we’re dreaming.
Joey lives with her best friend Craig (Jordan Gavaris) in an apartment full of used vapes. Since Craig is wealthy and Joey is traumatized from her time with Brian, neither of them works; instead, they lounge around the apartment, occasionally considering getting a job.
When a gross plumbing debacle forces them out of the apartment, Joey is shockingly keen on the pair traveling to Brian’s palatial estate to escape their apartment.
Pucci is almost unrecognizable as Brian.
Instead of his trademark blond hair, he’s a swarthy ponytailed beefcake adorned in matching tracksuits in every scene.
He’s a devoted dancer, gyrating his entire body (including impressive abs that catch the attention of Joey as well as Craig) to the songs he enjoys. He has an appropriately out-of-this-world charm, good looks, and a wide-eyed smile to endear him to anyone who crosses his path.
The most important thing about Brian, though, is his ability to touch people and alleviate their emotional pain. It’s what brought Joey back; it’s what reels Craig in, too.
They might have come for the working plumbing and been entranced by Brian’s sex appeal, but they stay because of how he can make them feel nothing at all.
Early in the film, Joey and Craig discuss the traumas they’ve experienced. Joey is also seen engaging in OCD behavior, such as cleaning her ears with Q-tips till they’re bloody. As Touch Me progresses, she opens up more about the horrifying abuse she’s lived through, and it becomes even more apparent why she came back to Brian.
She wants to escape her memories and the feelings they evoke. Brian can help her turn off her OCD and enjoy a blank mind.
Just as many people with mental illness may turn to something that’s not technically healthy for them to escape their minds, Joey and Craig turn to Brian to take away the negative feelings and behaviors associated with their traumas.
He is both their drug and their supplier, and he uses it to maintain control in his isolated home.
Brian isn’t good for the friends, and behind his overwhelming charm offensive, there may be something rotten at his core.
Olivia Taylor Dudley had a banner year at the 2025 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. Not only did she steal the show in Touch Me, but she also received the Best Performance Award for her heart-poundingly intense performance in Cassie Keet’s Abigail Before Beatrice as an entirely different character. Seeing her range as an actor was one of the highlights of the festival.
Pucci’s turn as Brian also made Touch Me into a movie that every audience member will remember. A foxy longhaired guy may not be what most people see when they think of a space alien god, but he places the character perfectly. His childish naïveté pairs with his cold cunning to make him the most interesting alien in modern horror.
Like Heimann’s smart and moving film Hypochondriac (2022), Touch Me spins out from reality in its exploration of mental illness. Ironically, the further he and his characters get from reality, the more relatable they become.
It can be easier to see one’s own suffering depicted in such an off-the-wall way—sex with a tentacled alien, quieting one’s mind, can be easier to handle than seeing Joey stick a Q-tip in her ear.
By using such a twisted sci-fi frame to explore trauma and OCD, Heimann has created a film that makes viewers feel seen, despite the absurdity of the scenarios Joey and Craig must contend with.
Touch Me isn’t just a movie about alien gods, codependent stoners, and tentacle sex (although that’s part of what makes it so fun to experience); it’s about how people can find a way to cope.
Overall Rating (Out of 5 Butterflies): 5
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