Touch Me’s Addison Heimann On His Beautifully Bonker Film

After breaking onto the scene in 2022 with his grounded horror debut Hypochondriac, filmmaker Addison Heimann’s sophomore feature Touch Me is a beautifully bonkers outing that needs to be seen to be believed. You can read our review of the film here.

We sat down with Addison to discuss his psychosexual sci-fi horror film Touch Me. After spending 5 minutes in his company, you completely understand where all the bizarre stuff from his movies comes from. We chatted about all the things you would hope for in an interview: tentacle sex scenes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and rogue blood cannons. So fasten your seatbelt.

TPM: Congrats on Touch Me. It’s so delightfully weird, sexual, vibrant, unapologetically silly and still had some heart and substance. It’s truly a bonkers ride. I imagine it must have been quite a pitch for producers and investors. I gotta ask, was it difficult to get this project off the ground? 

Addison: I know. It’s funny, because my first feature, Hypochondriac, is not this at all. It’s very much a grounded horror drama, based on my mental breakdown that I had eight years ago. But I had the feature and I had the South by Southwest stamp. So I think it would have been a little more difficult, if I didn’t have something that already existed that was not necessarily financially successful, but film festival-wise it was. And so through that film, I was able to meet people who kind of vibed with me, specifically David Lawson, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who are from this production company called Rustic films, who make weird sci-fi movies, like I do. 

I always say, I know this movie is not for everybody, but I knew this movie was for someone, because it’s for me. And I’m not the only person on this island. I know that there are people hiding in the sand and the caves, navigating this island and seeing unicorns fucking over there, and giant tentacle Krakens jousting. I’m going into the caves, and I see the people, and I’m like, “there you are”. These are my freaks. And this is something I’ve learned is that you’re not going to be more successful by hiding your strange. In fact, the way you do it is by embracing it and being upfront with how strange, bizarre or artistic you want to be. Because that’s how you find the people who gravitate towards you. That’s how you find your freaks. 

I’m not going to pretend like this movie was like the easiest thing to get off the ground. But we did. We found the people. I’m a person who likes to collect other people, not like to show off in my glass case, but to continue and collaborate with. Because we’re only as successful as the people we surround ourselves with. And the goal is to rise together. They were kind enough to give me a piece of themselves; I will forever be giving a piece of myself back in our collaboration. That will hopefully lead to me one day not winning an Oscar, because, like, come on, I made a tentacle sex movie, that’s not my path. But towards a day where we can look back and go, I’m proud of this career, I’m proud of the friendships I’ve made along the way. And now let’s drink wine.

Let’s talk a little bit about the influences for this movie. I’m sure you probably had a lot of people come up to you and say, Touch Me reminds me of this and that because there’s so much going on in this film. What were you drawing inspiration from when you were creating this film?

Addison: Well, Touch Me isn’t the first tentacle sex movie to be made. I think the film that was the most direct inspiration, more plot-related than style-related, was The Untamed. Which is the Spanish-language film about a tentacle sex monster in a shack that makes people feel euphoric. And when you’re in the throes of depression and you’re watching that movie, you go, “I want that so bad”. And so I kind of took that idea, and then I have a love of Japanese cinema and a love of the language and the culture. I’ve been learning the language for six years now, and so I’ve studied the lexicon of a film to come from every era. And there’s a particular era that I love called Pinku Eiga, pink films. Basically everything that Tarantino homage in Kill Bill is what I’m talking about. So your Lady Snowblood and Blind Woman’s Curse. Then there’s later films, like Mishima: A Life of Four Chapters that I drew from. There’s something so incredibly unique in terms of Japanese storytelling. They’re very tangible, they’re very practical, they’re very wild, they’re very stylistic, but they’re told in this really hyper pop way with colour. 

So for the nerds out there I think I directly pulled stills from like 20 or so movies over the course of the 60s and 70s that have a correlated homage in the movie. And because we didn’t have a lot of money, I wanted to be creative with it. But I also think there’s something with those movies that’s so tactile. I wanted to equally do as tactile of an effect with, like the theatrical style sets in the alien world and like the practical effects, and so all of that kind of led to the tonal cluster fuck. That is this movie.

Well put. And I agree there is a tactile quality to this film, which I think is needed in a film that’s literally titled Touch Me.

Addison:  Yeah, exactly right. Like, you call it “Touch Me”, and then we’re doing this scene with a tentacle that none of the actors can see, and then you have to put it in post, and if they’re not feeling that appendage, then I don’t believe it. I wanted to make it as real as possible for the actors and the audience.

You mentioned Japanese inspiration there as well. Is that the reason why the character Craig is learning Japanese on Duolingo in the movie?

Addison: Yeah. He’s the weeaboo. He’s the me-character but like a very dark shadow self version of me. My Duolingo streak is 2100, I think at this point. And little tidbit, the Duolingo voices in the movie are my tutor and me. And Duolingo let us keep the sound. We emailed them being like, “hey, can we use this?” They’re like, “we don’t give a shit”. I was like “Oh, bless you, Duolingo”. Because it’s not as funny without the ding. So I’m really grateful to them.

Just coming back to the influences. The two films I found to be quite reminiscent of were Gregg Araki’s Kaboom and John Cameron Mitchell’s How to talk to Girls at Parties. They’re both very vibrant, very weird, very sexually driven movies about aliens as well. 

Addison: Nice. I haven’t heard the John Cameron Mitchell film, but definitely Gregg Araki. He’s one of those people who to be compared to – I’m like, I just came into my pants. He’s a huge influence on me. And for me, it was less Kaboom, and more Nowhere and Now Apocalypse, which I fucking love. But something I love about his movies is that he creates his own realities, with the slang, with the acting style, with his production design. And so all of that is like, I’m picking up what he’s throwing down, and it’s something I very much aspire to. He was definitely a heavy influence on this film.

Awesome. I saw in your bio that you’re a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I could definitely feel the inspiration of that show in Touch Me as well. How do you feel about the news of the Buffy reboot series being cancelled by Hulu?

Addison: Listen. It’s one of those things where you watch that show, and I’m like, Sarah Michelle Gellar, we need the renaissance. Anything that puts Sarah Michelle Gellar back in the zeitgeist, I’m a huge fan of. Again, I understand the idea that some people are like, let it stay dead. Like, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is, like every gay kids awakening of the millennial times, and so much has been taken from that show and our art that we have used. So it would have been cool to see Sarah Michelle Gellar back in the Slayer world. And also with Chloé Zhao, one of the most interesting modern, Oscar-winning filmmakers to come in and helm it. But hopefully, one day we get to see a return to Sunnydale. And I would really like to retcon some way to bring Cordelia back from the dead. What’s funny is that Adam Busch, who plays Warren in Buffy, is in my first movie, so we’ve discussed this topic at large.

Well, that’s the thing about Buffy, even when she dies, she doesn’t stay dead for long. So who knows maybe they could find a way to bring Cordelia back too.

Let’s chat about casting. Great to see you got Paget Brewster back for a quick scene. And everyone’s really up for the weird stuff in this film and clearly surrendered themselves to the chaos. You open the film with a very impressive oner, with Olivia Taylor Dudley doing that insanely long monologue. I need to know how many takes did that take?

Addison: So that’s the first take. And not only is that her first take, that is the first thing we shot of the whole movie. She did it in one. I mean, we didn’t just do one, we did it four and a half takes. I say half take because a stupid plane interrupted one of them. But something to mention is that Olivia has dyslexia, and she had five days to learn that monologue. She just wrapped up filming another movie where she was the lead and was in every scene, so she did not have a lot of time. And then she comes in and just fucking murders that first take. And that’s why when directing, especially indies, you’ve just got to find people who are really good at their shit without you having to micromanage a lot. And Olivia is very much one of those actors, and I’m very glad she was part of it, because it’s a huge reason why I think the movie works.

Talk me through the sex scenes in this film, because that must’ve been wild to shoot. These aren’t your typical sex scenes. This is cross-species intercourse with tentacles and exploding heads. So, besides the actors, just who is exactly on set for these scenes? Do you have intimacy coordinators alongside the practical effects teams and the hair and makeup department? What’s going on there?

Addison: The answer is fucking everybody. That’s the all-hands-on-deck moment where literally every single person is on set, because that’s what that entire scene required. The actors needed to know what I was thinking in terms of the intimacy stuff and the nudity. And with the effects, people needed to know what they were building and what we were going to show. And the stunt people needed to know how I was envisioning doing the lifting into the air, and having that anime slash Super Metroid moment. And so it was very planned. And it is the least sexy thing you can imagine, because you want to make sure everybody’s comfortable. It’s obviously making sure the actors are safe. 

I just remember when Olivia was being lifted into the air. It’s not very sexy. She’s in the air for a maximum of 10 seconds. We reach the apex, and then she comes back down. I think we did four takes of that. And that was, like, a 14-hour day, because there was just so much logistics involved. 

And then you have eight people controlling the tentacle monster puppet. And you’re trying different things out to hopefully create this visually interesting sex scene that’s not sexy, but not exploitative. But hopefully it also tells the story of somebody finding euphoria for the first time after feeling so much anxiety. I

I’m very proud of it. It’s weird to say that it’s my favourite scene in the movie. It’s just an all-hands-on-deck moment, and everybody was firing on all cylinders. And so it was just a really gratifying, successful story of the movie.

I love that. The satisfaction of coming home after a long day, knowing you shot an interspecies sex scene that you’re proud of. I wish I knew that kind of job satisfaction. Do you have any other fun anecdotes or stories from making this film?

Addison: Gosh, so much. Dealing with the practical effects is my favorite part of the whole movie. They’re always the best days on set. It’s always great to figure out how blood works. Jordan, who plays Craig, he’s never done a horror movie before. And there’s a scene near the end of the movie where something big explodes and you get goo all over him and Olivia. He never had done blood and goo. And then the cannon that explodes, the goo misfires twice and only hits him. Everyone on set was dying from laughter. But the third time it finally worked. So it just took three takes in order to finally get the goo to distribute properly amongst the two actors.

Please tell me those outtakes are on the Blu-ray bonus features?

Addison: I don’t think it is. But we will have to release it someday. 

Is there anything else in the pipeline for you, Addison?

I’ve got a few things I’m working on. My first one is about a gay couple in purgatory who are told that the only way to get to heaven is to go through couples therapy, and it’s very much a horror. I won’t say why, but it exists in a Dark Crystal, Jim Henson-type world that is Purgatory. There’s a magic mirror that’s the therapist, there’s a wise old stump, there’s puppet musical numbers and a lot of blood. So if you like Touch Me, it’s the same kind of weird. I’ll say less about the second one because I’m still in the throes of a rewrite. But it’s like if Rosemary’s Baby mated with World of Warcraft. And that’s as much as I’ll say.

Touch Me is available on Digital and Blu-Ray from May 5th.