There’s nothing better than seeing a Midnight Movie get wildly polarizing reviews after its premiere screening. There’s also nothing worse than having to wait for that movie to play at another festival you’re attending 😒 but it’s always great when a movie is worth the wait! Addison Heimann’s Touch celebrated its world premiere at Sundance 2025 where some Letterboxd users absolutely annihilated the movie. A few examples include: “Touch Me? More like refund me!” or (my personal favorite) “[…] this is genuinely disrespectful to the Sundance Film Festival and I cannot believe anyone approved this“. These reviewers couldn’t be more wrong.Â
Written and directed by Addison Heimann, Touch Me recently screened at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival. The ratings spread is still almost nearly flat, with people hating and loving it in equal measure, but this bizarro midnight madness flick is slowly finding a more receptive audience. And it probably goes without saying that a movie about people gettin’ down with an alien monster isn’t everyone’s cup of horny horror-comedy tea.Â
“…it probably goes without saying that a movie about people gettin’ down with an alien monster isn’t everyone’s cup of horny horror-comedy tea.”
In a nutshell, Touch Me is just about a group of people having sex with a mysterious alien named Brian, played (in human form) by Lou Taylor Pucci (Evil Dead, 2013). His touch is like heroin, his tentacles give incredible orgasms, and he’s working toward saving humanity with his special extraterrestrial trees that absorb 100x more carbon dioxide than anything else on our planet. But Brian isn’t as benevolent and peaceful as he seems, and with the help of his Renfield-esque assistant Laura (Marlene Forte, Knives Out), Brian just might become a weapon of mass dickstruction that could threaten the lives of every living creature on the planet.
After a domino effect of bad news and empty bank accounts forces them out of their apartment, BFFs Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley, She Dies Tomorrow) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris, Curse of Chucky) set off to spend some time with Joey‘s ex-boyfriend Brian. Joey and Craig are fully aware that Brian is an alien…but who can say no to a staycation in a mansion and a weekend of mind-blowing sex? Joey‘s relationship with Brian is unsurprisingly complicated, but the promise of waving goodbye to all their problems, if only for a short while (or maybe forever), is too alluring to just say no.
“Pure midnight madness from start to finish”
Touch Me is (clearly) not for everyone, but it’s got one hell of a personality and a kooky sensibility. Writer/director Addison Heimann is coming out swinging with a sophomore feature a million light years away from his ultra-serious and sullen debut Hypocondriach. Sometimes off-the-wall comedy, sometimes sci-fi soft core, Touch Me is never dull, always fun ‘n’ funky, and boasts some A+ practical gore.
It’s pure midnight madness from start to finish, always looking for a wild and engaging way to explore its own story- including a silent film inspired detour where text message conversations are displayed as dialogue cards. That said, Touch Me is not just weird for the sake of weird, and if you prefer your gory alien sci-fi soft core to “mean” something, you’ll find a pretty honest deep dive into co-dependency and that want to run away from everything. But also: exploding heads, interdimensional hentai, and *drum roll* hip hop dance therapy.
“Not just weird for the sake of weird […] never dull, always kooky, and boasts some A+ practical gore.”
Addison Heimann’s Touch Me celebrated its Texas Premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival after a divisive World Premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Click HERE to follow our continued coverage of the festival, and let us know all about your own sexy alien encounters over in the Nightmare on Film Street Discord!
Hot at the Shop:
