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Have you ever seen a movie featuring alien tentacle sex, cult addiction, and mental trauma? Touch Me, written and directed by refreshingly out of this planet director Addison Heimann, covers those topics in an immersive and propulsive fashion with his stars Olivia Taylor Dudley, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jordan Gavaris, and Marlene Forte. Heimann talked to CinemAddicts host Eric Holmes about the personal origins of his critically acclaimed feature, which hits theaters March 27.
Read more: Addison Heimannn Talks Alien Sex, Anxiety Loops, And Inspired Creation Of ‘Touch Me’
Addison Heimann begins the interview discussing his obsessive compulsive disorder which he jokes is “a really fun thing to have.” Although it gives him the ability to be hyper-focused, it can also lead to a “negative thought spiral.”
“In order to kind of break the anxiety loop is to do something called exposure and response prevention therapy,” says Heimann. “Which one version of it is where you take your deep, disturbing thoughts and you (transform) them in a completely fantastical and ridiculous way.”
For example, if one has a negative thought of their boyfriend breaking up with them, then one can imagine, in Heimann’s words, “unicorns having an orgy.”
That surreal perspective informs Touch Me, the story of a young woman (Oliva Taylor Dudley) who takes her best friend (Jordan Gavaris) to her ex-lover’s (Lou Taylor Pucci) mansion. The catch is Mr. Right is actually an alien, and he has a manipulative woman (Marlene Forte) doing a ton of his dirty work.
Heimann is well aware Touch Me is a divisive feature. “You either are on board because you’re a freak like I am,” says Heimann, who previously directed the 2022 movie Hypochondriac. “Or you absolutely want to run away from the hills and think that I’m a person who should be lit on fire. When you have that kind of specificity, you end up finding the freaks.”
Consider all three of us “freaks” in CinemAddicts, since we all love the film. We reviewed and praised the movie last week:
Full interview with Addison Heimann:
