Addison Heimann’s Touch Me opens with Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) recounting a vivid story to her therapist, Kelly (Ashley Lauren Nedd), about meeting an alien who wants to save the world. This is all part of an ‘immersion therapy’ used to treat OCD and PTSD. It’s a single-shot monologue that’s incredibly engrossing and immediately draws us into Joey’s world. She living with her friend, Craig (Jordan Gavaris), who’s depressed, panicky, and living off his family’s money (which he spends more than he gets). The pair take up an invitation from Brian, the alien (Lou Taylor Pucci), to stay with him at his remote and enormous house, which is serendipitous since their shower is filling with faeces (forcing them to use ‘Silence of the Lambs cream’). At Brian’s house, they experience various different ‘therapies’ from the enigmatic Christ-like entity, the daily routine akin to a health camp and evenings often spent in carnal cross-species, tentacled intercourse. Brian’s assistant, an older woman named Laura (Marlene Forte), provides aid and resentment towards Joey. As the pair open up to their host, things become even more intense.
Touch Me provokes reactions similar to those in Heimann’s previous film, Hypochondriac (2022) – the wolf mask even makes a hilarious appearance – and also has illness at its heart. Everyone in Brian’s orbit has suffered troubled childhoods, something he appears to feed upon as much as he does with the sex sessions. Mixing off-the-wall humour and a striking visual style that owes much to the Japanese ‘Pink’ films, Touch Me goes to some incredibly dark places but does so in a captivating and evocative way. The themes of abuse and addiction can be uncomfortable, but the sharp dialogue and keen performances keep it from being too morose. It also works as a bizarre satire of ‘wellness’ retreats, invasive therapy sessions, the pursuit of happiness, and unhealthy co-dependent relationships.
As nightmarish as it is emotional and funny as it outlandish, Touch Me deserves to be on the radar of any cult movie fan who can handle the triggers.
