‘Touch Me’ Director Previews His Alien Throuple Comedy, From Tentacle Sex to Hip-Hop Dance Sequences

It’s hard to believe that a movie as wild as “Touch Me,” premiering Tuesday as part of Sundance’s Midnight slate, could be autobiographical. After all, a quick logline — two friends grow addicted to the heroin-esque touch of an alien and end up in a throuple with him — doesn’t even scratch at the surface of the genre-bending horror-comedy. Yet the film is quite personal to writer-director Addison Heimann. “The movie is based on my life,” he says. “I was going through a pretty devastating friendship breakup at the time of the inception of this movie, and I think it’s something that we don’t expect to take so much out of you in the way that romantic relationships take you through.” Related Stories From there, the characters of Craig (Jordan Gavaris) and Joey (Olivia Taylor Dudley) — a stand-in for Heimann and his ex-BFF, respectively — were born. The co-dependent pair doesn’t necessarily push each other to be their best selves, something Heimann was familiar with. Popular on Variety “When I was going through it, I thought, ‘Oh, it’s her fault, and I’m gonna explore this as if it’s my fault,’” he says. “Craig is me, but all the self-loathing...