“TICKLED” My rating: B
91 minutes | MPAA rating:R
As if the Internet wasn’t creepy enough, along comes “Tickled,” a documentary so suffused with anxiousness and oozing such an intimidating pall that it turns even the childlike act of tickling into a perversion.
David Farrier is a New Zealand broadcast journalist who specializes in offbeat human interest stories. When he found an Internet site devoted to “competitive endurance tickling” he figured it was worth looking into.
The videos showed young men being tied up and tickled by other young men with fingers, feathers, even electric toothbrushes. The videos are both playful and sadistic, seemingly innocent yet weirdly homoerotic.
But as soon as he began making inquiries, Farrier received cease and desist letters from Jane O’Brien Media, the company apparently behind the videos. The firm sent a trio of “negotiators” from the U.S. to Aukland to confront Farrier and threaten him with legal actions that would gobble up his time and resources.
Most of us would bail. Not Farrier: “I didn’t want to give in to a bunch of bullies.”
And so — with friend and co-director Dylan Reeve — he began sniffing around the world of competitive tickling.
David Farrier
Farrier and Reeve journeyed to the U.S. They found T.J., a former “ticklee” who got into the “sport” for the money (up to $2,000 a session) but found himself the object of a smear campaign when he tried to cut ties to Jane O’Brien Media. Administrators at the small-town high school where T.J. was a volunteer coach began receiving anonymous messages that T.J. was a child molester. Worse would follow.
Most young men involved in the tickling scene were too intimidated to talk to the journalists.
But bit by bit Farrier and Reeve uncovered a far-flung tickling empire, tracing the whole operation back to a former school teacher and trust-fund heir in Garden City, NY.
“Tickled” is a cautionary tale that plays like a whodunnit, capturing along the way an atmosphere of fear and defiance. It’s a twisty movie telling a twisted yarn.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 
“Tickled” was one of the surprise hits of True/False Film Festival this year. We really just went because our first pick was sold out, but ended up raving about it! Five of us from the KIFF Ks Intl Film Festival saw it and loved it. SO excited that Brian Mossman brought it in now for KC film lovers to see. During the Q&A with the film’s producer in Columbia in March, (who was flown in from Australia!) he got served by the crank lawyer featured in the film. It takes real guts to go up against someone–a bully–with no conscience– with unlimited Wall Street money and the ability to endlessly file nuisance suits to intimidate people to mask his shame.
Which is why I am not signing my real name!!!
Come see this film!