Touch Me - Tentacle Sex As Therapy

 

Addison Heimann’s Touch Me opens with a bravura ten minute monologue that unloads the entire premise in one therapy dump. It's a bold move that showcases the strength of it's lead and gets the setup out of the way so the mayhem can commence unabated. 

A charismatic alien called Brian has seduced and slept with Joey, using his anxiety-erasing tentacles. Understandably freaked out, she retreats to her friend Craig’s place and tries to forget about her cosmic one night stand. Brian immediately shows up again, and soon both Joey and Craig end up at his lavish home competing for his affections.

Touch Me is an entertainingly weird experience. Heimann’s oddball writing throws you from one bizarre scene to the next, using Joey and Craig’s Gen Z burnout energy to anchor the story in some form of normality. 

Both tone and style are constantly shifting, moving from straight up comedy to dark sci-fi with the occasional hentai detour. 

The resulting mish mash of genres can feel unfocused at times…but that’s the point, everyone here is a complete mess. Joey and Craig are adrift in life when we meet them, and Brian’s otherworldly influence only complicates their already murky situation.

Lou Taylor Pucci plays Brian like a creepy cult leader, channeling the laid back pretension and Jesus-like grooming habits of Jared Leto. It is a neat bit of casting, given that Pucci once played the love interest of a tentacle creature in Benson and Moorhead's brilliant Spring. Now he gets to be the tentacle monster. 

He throws himself into the role, at several points throwing shapes in topless dance sequences. Olivia Taylor Dudley and Jordan Gavaris have great chemistry as best friends who constantly betray each other for Brian’s touch. 

Things take a turn for the sinister when Joey uncovers Brian’s true nature, yet neither she nor Craig leave his gaudy compound. The second half plays out like a fusion of Ex Machina and Bugonia, as the characters try to navigate a dangerous and volatile figure of influence while battling their own mental health.

At its core, it is a messed up throuple romance about working through trauma by connecting with others. It's also nice to see tentacle sex that's (semi) consensual for a change.