Movie Review: TOUCH ME

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: March 24th, 2026 / 10:18 PM

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Olivia Taylor Dudley, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jordan Gavaris, Marlene Forte, Paget Brewster, Ashley Lauren Nedd, JJ Phillips
Writer: Addison Heimann
Director: Addison Heimann
Distributor: Yellow Veil Pictures
Release Date: March 20, 2026 (New York theatrical); March 27, 2026 (wider theatrical), April 2, 2026 (on demand/digital)

In TOUCH ME, written and directed by Addison Heimann, Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) and Craig (Jordan Gavaris) have an extremely co-dependent platonic relationship. They’ve lived together for five years. Craig hates himself so much that he needs Joey to constantly reassure him that he’s not worthless. Joey works low-paying jobs, when she does work, and needs Craig (who is gay) to keep her sheltered and fed. They both drink in excess.

After Joey has been gone for a while, only to return barefoot and bloodied, Craig has paid for her to have immersion therapy. In this particular psychological treatment, the patient tells an invented fantasy story that encapsulates a real traumatic event.

Joey’s therapist (Ashley Lauren Nedd) listens through a monologue that we recognize partway through as literal (rather than made-up) exposition. Long story (as short as can be made here), Joey met a man calling himself Brian (Lou Taylor Pucci), who claimed to be an extraterrestrial.

Brian invited Joey for a stay at his isolated, opulent desert compound, where he proved that he was indeed an alien. His touch can clear human minds of pain, anxiety and any other distressing thoughts.

This was intoxicating for Joey. However, when they had sex and she overheated to the point she feared her head would explode, she fled back to Craig’s.

However, a plumbing crisis that neither Craig nor Joey can pay to fix has Joey turning back to Brian, who is only too happy to welcome her again with Craig in tow.

While both Joey and Craig are accepting of Brian’s real tentacled physical form – they’ll put up with practically anything for a touch from what Craig calls Brian’s “heroin skin” – issues mount up.

These include but are not limited to Craig’s attraction to Brian, lies that Joey and Craig have told each other and themselves, whether or not Brian is telling the truth about various things, what kind of hidden agenda Brian’s human assistant Laura (Marlene Forte) has, and whether Brian may be dangerous.

It’s probably no accident that Brian looks like the conventional portrait of a white Jesus, which goes with his beatific persona. Like all the main characters, Brian has multiple sides, which Pucci enacts with wit and just the right amount of the requisite diverse qualities.

In fact, filmmaker Heimann and his cast deftly handle all the turns and nuances and individual quirks the script throws at them. Although we can see that both Craig and especially Joey can be downright hateful at times, somehow the writing and Dudley and Gavaris’s performances keep us pulling for them to snap out of it.

Forte likewise traverses Laura’s outer and more secret self with assurance, and Paget Brewster has a notable scene as an entitled coffee shop patron.

TOUCH ME is maybe a little harder on Joey and Craig than we might be – yes, they are incredibly needy and should get out of their own way, but they have also been fulfilling their unstated obligations to each other. One of the main metaphors TOUCH ME goes for therefore is a bit unearned, though we can see how it applies in the broad strokes.

Otherwise, TOUCH ME is consistently clever and engaging. It even addresses (if not answers) lingering questions we may have by the end. It is suspenseful enough that we genuinely want to know how it will work out, tentacles, blood, resentments and all.

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Dark sci-fi comedy about romantic entanglement with an alien

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