Cinema’s cutting edge has been jack-knifed onto itself in the sci-fi opiate cult masterpiece Touch Me, written and directed by Addison Heimann. Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) is currently in therapy with Dr. Kelly (Ashley Lauren Nedd) for her emotional devastation from repeatedly having sex with an alien life form, who wears a track suit, and goes by the name Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci) Shortly after meeting Brian, Joey was touched by his tentacle and, for the first time in her life, had all of the anxiety from growing up in foster homes melt away. Wanting to feel the dreamy, unencumbered sensation more, she goes to the alien’s woodland compound and has sex among glowing trees with Brian’s tentacles going everywhere outside and inside her. Then Brian gets carried away while having sex, with Joey suddenly feeling like her head is about to explode if Brian hadn’t climaxed just in time.
She runs through the woods to get away, her bare feet bleeding by the time she arrives at the door of her gay friend, Craig (Jordan Gavatis). Craig lets her stay, no questions asked, as Joey is his hag and he dearly loves her company. However, Joey misses what the touch of the alien brings her, so she ends up back at the compound with Craig along for support. Brian and his human assistant, Laura (Marlene Forte), welcome both into their rituals with the giant crystal Brian brought from his home world, which feeds off personal tragedy. Soon, Joey is back having sex with Brian, but then Craig finds himself the next subject of inter-species intercourse as Brian’s warmth gushes through his nervous system.
“Joey is currently in therapy with Dr. Kelly for her emotional devastation…”
Heroin metaphors have been hidden beneath pop culture’s underbelly for decades, hidden in the final chapters of Jim Thompson pulp novels, and glazing the lyrics of bands like The Gun Club and Echo And The Bunnymen. It gives viewers who haven’t given their lives away to the poppy a taste of what it is like. The heroin metaphor in Touch Me is blatant as opposed to whispered, which is one of the reasons this amazing picture glows in the dark. Heimann openly links up the touch of the alien’s tentacle with heroin use earlier on, and keeps laying down further tracks of narcotic personification as it goes. It is how well Heimann captures the doomed desire that smack generates that is sinister genius.
"…the new heroin beacon shining high on the art house hill."
