"I fucked an alien, an alien named Brian", confesses anxiety filled Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) to her therapist, in the middle of recounting a bizarre and not altogether safe sexual experience. Joey encounters the track suited, impressively coiffed and potentially planet saving intergalactic visitor while on a catering gig (Lou Taylor Pucci). One touch of his glowing finger relieves her of her inner fears, and the resultant drunken sex with tentacles, although not consensual, is life changing.
Joey's description of the event as a sort of "hentai porn" experience is a pretty good description for the majority of Heimann's decidedly odd sophomore feature. To flee her weird and borderline dangerous encounter, Joey retreats to the safety of the home she shares with gay Craig (Jordan Gavaris); their slacker shtick is one of the highlights of the film.
But that safety is short lived; when their shower backs up with horseshit leaving them unable to afford the plumbing fees, 'Brian' enters the scene again when Joey accepts an invitation to his weekend retreat, bringing Craig with her. In between bouts of hip hop workouts with his assistant, Laura (Marlene Forte), 'Brian' seduces both flatmates; but his promises of a solution to earthly climate change mask a sinister, and more deadly purpose.
That Touch Me's executive producers include those purveyors of the headscratchy, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, is a thumbs up for the combination of humour and absurdity that abounds in Heimann's film, which takes a whacked out look at addiction (chemical and emotional), self help and friendship without ever becoming self consciously quirky. Dudley and Gavaris are excellent as the two vaguely millennial friends - I could have watched a movie starring just the two of them - and Pucci's Brian is splendidly polymorphously perverse. If this was filmed twenty years ago it would definitely have been more explicit (the credited Intimacy Coordinator is a sign of the times) and because of this at times I felt that Touch Me held back a little. But it's a funny, inventive movie with enough quirks and ticks to maintain interest.
Touch Me is available on digital download from 4th May.
