Tickled

What begins as a lighthearted enquiry into the bizarre world of competitive tickling, ends up somewhere much, much darker in this remarkably alarming and utterly compelling documentary that gets more surprising and strange the further it digs.

For Kiwi journalist David Farrier (who specialises in searching out curious stories) it all begins with a video showing a young man in a bright tracksuit strapped to a bed writhing and laughing uncontrollably as four other men straddle and tickle him. In discovering the online world of ‘Competitive Endurance Tickling’ - where strong young men are paid to be tied-up to see who can withstand being tickled the longest - he thought he’d found the perfect material for a lighthearted news feature. But when the response he receives to his request for an interview is an unexpected barrage of emails spitting vitriol, legal threats and homophobic slurs – Farrier decides to dig deeper. As it turns out, sinister forces are at work in the world of recreational tickling; revealing an underworld of hidden identities and mysterious activity, in which one question persists – just who is behind it all?

Reminiscent of Capturing the Friedmans in its slow uncovering of the compulsively odd, this increasingly dark and weird detective story contains countless twists too juicy to spoil here, as obsessive interest and a taste for power games culminates in a denouement of ruffled feathers in which no one is laughing.

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