While the festival circuit is often the springboard for films to become blockbusters or arthouse hits, there are plenty that make splashy debuts at Sundance and SXSW, but subsequently take time to finally get wide releases. From the Dakota Johnson-led Am I Ok? taking over two years to finally hit HBO Max, to David Schwimmer’s Little Death still unreleased after its 2024 premiere, early acclaim can only take certain films so far. That’s what makes Touch Me’s impending arrival such a blessing. The genre-bending sci-fi horror-comedy made its world premiere back at 2025’s Sundance Film Festival, alongside the likes of Dave Franco and Alison Brie’s Together and the multi-Oscar-nominated Train Dreams, and became the talk of the town for its unabashedly sexy, psychedelic tale of addiction and trauma. Even after a year-long wait to bring it to theaters, it’s still very much worth your attention.
Touch Me’s Bold & Innovative Style More Than Makes Up For The Occasional Writing Stumble

Written and directed by Addison Heimann in his second feature effort, Touch Me centers on Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley), a young woman who, in the wake of getting out of a deeply dependent relationship with an attractive and charismatic alien named Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci), moves in with her friend, Craig (Jordan Gavaris). Much like Joey, Craig is a millennial with no real direction in life, stuck in a state of arrested development due to trauma from his childhood, as well as his unwillingness to grow. Just as the pair find themselves in a difficult financial place (after a sewer explosion leaves their house in disarray), Joey suddenly runs into Brian, who invites her and Craig to his remote desert mansion for a weekend getaway. Keen to escape their disastrously odorous home, they reluctantly venture to Brian’s place, where he slowly seduces them both under the guise of helping them heal their traumas, turning their visit into a chaotic few days of personal reflection and sexual competition. From the film’s opening moments, it’s very apparent just how much of himself Heimann has poured into both Joey and Craig. Their millennial existential crises and unapologetic lifestyles ring true for both the writer/director and others in his generation. Whether it’s their endless self-deprecation in the hopes of being validated by those around them, or an inability (or unwillingness) to confront prior traumas that have shaped their current identities, Joey and Craig are very recognizable, well-written even if the chaotic third act somewhat undermines their efforts to grow.

The movie’s psychedelic production is all the more benefited by Touch Me’s dedication to practical effects.

One of the more fascinating elements of Touch Me’s character work, though, is the way Heimann utilizes his sci-fi plot to explore the nature of codependent relationships. Joey’s inability to break free from Brian’s grasp is depicted as the drug-like feeling his alien touch provides her, helping wash away all of her anxieties. Whereas for Joey and Craig, their unique mix of recognizing their flaws while allowing each other to keep them buried makes their friendship simultaneously comfortable and inescapable. But even as Heimann spends plenty of time rounding out his central characters, he doesn’t focus all of his attention there, also making Touch Me a truly out-of-this-world visual experience. Teaming with editor Jess Weber and reuniting with his Hypochondriac cinematographer Dustin Supencheck, Heimann displays a remarkable eye for a variety of styles, particularly in his homages to the Japanese exploitation genre, making almost every frame pop with color and energy. The movie’s psychedelic production is all the more benefited by Touch Me’s dedication to practical effects. Without unveiling too much about Brian’s alien nature, Heimann’s film takes things to the extreme with both its dreamlike sex scenes and horrific deaths. A certain sequence involving an “interspecies sexual intercourse” session ends on such a wild note, it’s impossible to forget.

Lou Taylor Pucci’s Brian standing naked and covered in blood in a red-lit room in Touch MeCourtesy of Yellow Veil Pictures

As fun as the film is when it leans into its genre trappings, Touch Me wouldn’t be anything without its small-but-superb cast. Olivia Taylor Dudley, largely underutilized beyond her time on The Magicians and with Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, is transcendent as Joey, easily delivering a career-best performance.

Jordan Gavaris, generally better known for his Orphan Black tenure, is wonderfully funny as the ever-zany Craig, even if his moments of trauma reflection never quite match those of Dudley’s. Lou Taylor Pucci (Daredevil: Born Again), meanwhile, fully commits to the bit of the cult leader-like Brian, while Marlene Forte (Hypochondriac) is wickedly gripping as Brian’s assistant/unrequited love. All in all, Touch Me certainly isn’t perfect: Its third act struggles to maintain the smooth flow of what preceded it, and the actual hardships of Joey and Craig’s codependent friendship feels like they could have used some more direct focus. However, its flaws are nothing in the grand scheme of enjoying Heimann’s feature return, and hopefully this film helps further propel him to make more wild, stylish rides. Touch Me hits theaters on March 20.

Release Date

March 20, 2026

Runtime

100 minutes

Director

Addison Heimann

Writers

Addison Heimann

Producers

John Humber, Addison Heimann, David Lawson Jr.

Cast

Olivia Taylor Dudley

Joey