Sundance 2025 Review: TOUCH ME is a Psychosexual, Tentacle-Filled Stunner

Addison Heimann’s Touch Me feels tailor-made for 2000s teens who came of age exploring Newgrounds.com’s niche popularity and independent video store backrooms. Its confrontations of trauma are veiled behind sumptuous Japanese media influences: “Pink” films, anime, and hentai. Heimann’s cosmically carnal tale is brazenly naked — pun intended. Touch Me’s alien erotica bares all in an orgy of anxious spirals, wriggly appendages, and repressed sadness. Expect a sexually charged commentary on masturbatory suffering with love paid to Gregg Araki and John Waters, which — while divisive — bursts with unbridled originality that cements Heimann as a filmmaking voice everyone should follow.

Olivia Taylor Dudley stars as Joey, the stressed-out byproduct of foster care and a substantial wine reliance. At her lowest, she’s drinking reds while pretending to work at a coffee shop. At her highest, Joey experiences the euphoria of interspecies intercourse with a celestial being who claims he wants to save Earth. Joey breaks away from her extraterrestrial lover Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci) after a night of dangerously passionate sexing, but she finds herself back at his modernistic mansion touching magical crystals with her current bestie Craig (Jordan Gavaris). She cannot resist Brian’s healing powers nor his hip-hop dance moves — like an addict going back for another hit.

Heimann’s playing with a thematic loaded gun by stitching trauma and addiction together, but avoids taking stray storytelling shots. Touch Me doesn’t fear mess in any regard. Brian’s softcore tentacle porn writhes in its juices while Joey and Craig expose themselves as catty vape-sucking enablers. There’s a balance between gory money shots, orgasmic releases, and legitimate therapeutic qualities. Whether or not Brian soothes Joey and Craig’s emotional scars with benevolent intentions is beside the point because Heimann is illustrating something more critical. Getting better takes invaluable, painful work that will inevitably get worse before you can move forward — the message Heimann buries under glorious smut.

And, the smut is glorious.

Touch Me basks in psychosexual taboo, but not without tact or sensuality. Its tentacular sex scenes thrive under neon hues as Brian and Joey interlock atop Japanese-influenced architecture, flavorful in their estranged tastes. Heimann’s intoxicating brand of forbidden romance juxtaposes against the film’s swerve into more diabolical events as climaxes become shotgun blasts of gore. Genre elements are swirled together in a spunky, bloody, emotionally charged tapestry of sci-fi-freaky “trauma porn,” quite literally. The horror comedy’s fetishism is organic; the elation on Joey’s face is sublimely authentic. Live-action hentai is a risky proposition, but Heimann does an exceptional job in physically displaying Brian’s lifting, massaging shots, and the conveyed stimulation that is as free as the director’s creative expression.

For as beastly, gory, and creature-forward Touch Me becomes, it’s still dominantly a character study. Anxieties stemming from traumatic repression are heroically displayed through the film’s central quartet. Dudley and Gavaris boast an unmistakably in-tune banter as slackers surviving on nepotism and vibes, but also thrive in their standoffish rivalry once Brian accepts Craig into his healing bubble. Their coexistence is a disaster, yet at their lowest, they need each other so desperately. Touch Me puts a spotlight on Dudley as Joey juggles her panic, Craig’s bandaids, and Brian’s suspicious salvation — letting herself succumb to Joey’s hurricane of misery and superficiality — but she’s not alone. Gavaris’ nepobaby whining and self-serving generosity define toxic relationships even when beneficial, as Heimann’s characters explore the hardships and easiness of repeating patterns that keep us from beating our demons.

Then there’s Pucci, playing an extraterrestrial man-child who operates like a tracksuited cult leader. He’s not asked to hide his alien intentions, which allows Pucci to utilize nonchalantness as a comedic device. Brian’s touch may be a source of envious blankness that erases destructively human thoughts, but his intentions are nebulous. Pucci’s hilarious, aggressively charming, and transformative as an alien who says the quiet parts out loud. The physicality of his gyrations and welcoming, soft-eyed aura are meant to throw red flags, but Brian’s magnetic attractions allow us to fall under his spell. I’ve long adored Pucci’s genre roles, from the masterful Spring to 2013’s terrifying Evil Dead remake, but Touch Me might be his most accomplished overall. There’s nuance and naughtiness in spades, anchoring the film’s audaciousness.

But most impressively? Heimann’s stylistic prowess is a candy-coated homage to the Japanese “Pink” films mentioned above. Rooms filled with rosy cherry blossom trees vividly pop against the deepest blue flooring, as contrasting colors explode off the screen. Touch Me adores its influences yet is not restricted by singular assertions. Hazy upper-crust pretension fades into gorgeous international symbolism, yet a surprise black-and-white film noir sequence jostles expectations. There’s also the hardcore 80s creature work, as Brian’s bug-eyed form makes uncamouflaged appearances. Heimann’s status as a student of cinema is on display, which only adds to his sophomore project’s undefinable allure.

Touch Me is a dazzler; it's graphic and graceful. Heimann’s intimate, bleeding-heart genre hybrid plays by its own rules. Ambitions are grand and sure; some tonal craziness gets jumbled in the fold, but Touch Me acknowledges where threads get a bit thin. Perhaps Heimann’s meta jokes are his surfaced insecurities, beating critics to the punch, but even at that, he confidently dares to stand by what’s presented. Touch Me will not be for everyone, but that’s what’s exciting. As someone who struggles with anxiety and processing trauma, this movie hit me like a spacecraft at light speed. For those who need Touch Me, it’ll speak their language in a way few movies are courageous enough to attempt.

Movie Score: 4/5