Tickled (2016)

UNKNOWN

Various

91%

2016, Documentary/Lgbtq+, 1h 32m

RT Critics’ Score: 94% (UNBIASED)
RT Audience Score: 86%
Awards & Nominations: 1 win & 16 nominations

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Critics Consensus

Tickled uses an investigation into a silly-seeming subculture as the launching point for thought-provoking insights into online bullying and the destructive abilities of the internet.

Audience Consensus

Tickled is a wild ride that will have you laughing, cringing, and questioning everything you thought you knew about tickling. This documentary delves into the bizarre world of competitive endurance tickling, but what starts as a lighthearted look at a quirky subculture quickly turns into a dark and twisted tale of harassment, conspiracy, and malice. With inventive camera work and a shocking story, Tickled is a must-watch for anyone who loves a good mystery. Just be prepared to never look at tickling the same way again.

Storyline

David Farrier, a New Zealand pop cultural reporter whose story subjects often verge into the bizarre, believes he’s found his next story when he stumbles across an online video on the world of competitive endurance tickling, a sport where the participants, with hands and feet tied down, are tickled for as long as they can endure. Participants are flown to Los Angeles first class, paid $1,500, and put up for four nights in a luxury hotel. Suitable participants are deemed to be younger, muscular males. The event is held on a monthly basis. In contacting the organizers, US-based Jane O’Brien Media, via their popular Facebook page to arrange for an interview, David receives a return message from one of their representatives, Debbie J. Kuhn, declining the offer, the message a homophobic rant largely against David. In that message, Debbie asserts that the competition is wholly a heterosexual athletic activity, she who does not appreciate what will be David’s assumed gay bent on the story as a homosexual himself (which David does not state he is or isn’t in his request). David finds the message all the more odd as the activity as it appears in the videos has an undeniable gay vibe. What is even more odd is that Debbie on behalf of Jane O’Brien, continually emails David over the following weeks expounding on the themes in the original message. At this time, David’s friend, Dylan Reeve, enters the fray, acting initially as a researcher for David, and then eventually as co-filmmaker for a documentary on the subject. However, the documentary eventually morphs from the sport of competitive endurance tickling into the mysterious world of Jane O’Brien and Debbie Kuhn, especially: as they seem to have unlimited resources both to hold the events and to conduct their online harassment they learn not only of David, but of former associates who now seem to want to distance themselves from the “sport” and Jane O’Brien Media; as Jane and Debbie initiate legal action and threaten even more legal action, and issue general threats time and time against David and Dylan not only for this unauthorized documentary but for their activities toward Jane O’Brien Media as a whole; and as no one seems to know who Debbie or Jane are, even the people that work for them, or what their end goal is, namely what will be done with the resulting videos of the competitions, which populate the Internet. The story takes a further twist when David and Dylan learn there truly is a tickling sexual fetish subculture, one within that community, Richard Ivey, who willingly talks to David and who remembers someone else online decades ago within the community with a similar M.O. to Debbie and Jane.

Production Company(ies)
Poly Gram Filmed Entertainment, Spelling Films, International, Blue Parrot

Distributor
Magnolia Pictures

Release Type
Theatrical, Theatrical (Limited)

Filming Location(s)
Muskegon, Michigan, USA

MPAA / Certificate
Rated R for language

Year of Release
2016

Technical Specs

Color:

Color
Sound mix:

Dolby
Aspect ratio:

1.85 : 1
Runtime:

1h 32m
Language(s):

English
Country of origin:

United States
Release date:

Release Date (Theaters): Jun 17, 2016 Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Apr 17, 2017

Genre(s)
Documentary/Lgbtq+

Keyword(s)
documentary, LGBTQ+, investigative journalism, online bullying, internet, tickling competition, bizarre, threatening, bully, journalist, New Zealand, David Farrier, Dylan Reeve, Carthew Neal, Magnolia Pictures, R, language, English, 2016, box office, gross USA, $612.8K, runtime, 1h 32m, directed by David Farrier, Dylan Reeve, written by David Farrier, produced by Carthew Neal, reviewed by Darian Lusk, Christopher Orr, Nigel Andrews, Kevin Maher, Jake Wilson, Tara Brady, Dennis Harvey, Michael J Casey, Olly Richards, Jim Rohner, Heidy Morales, starring David Farrier, Dylan Reeve, Marko Realmonte, narrator, documentary, LGBTQ+, online coercion, identity theft, blackmail, Abercrombie & Fitch, models, clothed, homoeroticism, sexual, tickling fetish, investigation, journalism, documentary filmmaking, hidden cameras, secret voice recordings, ambush tactics, self-hatred, revenge, bullying, innocence, guilt, legal action, allegations, releases, veracity, storytelling, filmmaking, filler, exposition, padding, methodology, traumatized, unwilling, horror movies, MCU, Netflix series, TV shows, news, reviews

Box Office Details

Worldwide gross: $790,519
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $974,314
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,603
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 106,250

US/Canada gross: $613,956
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): $756,700
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,245
US/Canada opening weekend: $21,898
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): $26,989
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): 2,402

Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): NA
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): NA
Production budget ranking: NA
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): NA
ROI to date (est.): NA
ROI ranking: NA

Cast & Crew

David Farrier

Dylan Reeve

Marko Realmonte

Justin Pemberton

Carthew Neal

David Farrier

Dylan Reeve

Marko Realmonte

Justin Pemberton

Carthew Neal

David Farrier – Narrator, Director
Dylan Reeve – Director
Marko Realmonte – Self
Justin Pemberton – Executive Producer
Carthew Neal – Producer

David Farrier

Carthew Neal

Director

Writer

Producer

Director(s)
David Farrier, Dylan Reeve

Writer(s)
NA

Producer(s)
Carthew Neal

Film Festivals
Sundance

Awards & Nominations
1 win & 16 nominations

Academy Awards

Top Reviews

Darian Lusk

Christopher Orr

Nigel Andrews

Kevin Maher

Jake Wilson

Observer

The Atlantic

Financial Times

Times (UK)

The Age (Australia)

TICKLED
All Critics (118) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (111) | Rotten (7)
The shocking truth is uncomfortably pursued to its fullest, and the result is a riveting piece of investigative journalism.

March 24, 2017

Darian Lusk
Observer
TOP CRITIC
It’s not a film you’ll soon forget.

March 16, 2017

Christopher Orr
The Atlantic
TOP CRITIC
David Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s Tickled defies belief and almost description.

December 27, 2016 | Rating: 5/5

Nigel Andrews
Financial Times
TOP CRITIC
Tickled is an unexpectedly engrossing documentary that’s built around the hitherto unexplored (on film anyway) world of “competitive endurance tickling”.

October 10, 2016 | Rating: 4/5

Kevin Maher
Times (UK)
TOP CRITIC
It would be unfair to spoil the surprises in David Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s investigative documentary Tickled, but the premise should be enough to draw you in.

August 25, 2016 | Rating: 3.5/5

Jake Wilson
The Age (Australia)
TOP CRITIC
More meaningfully, Tickled offers an anatomy of intimidation that feels particularly relevant for our post-Gamergate times.

August 22, 2016 | Rating: 4/5

Tara Brady
Irish Times
TOP CRITIC
Tickled starts out as a very amusing look at a fetish subculture, then takes a rather startling turn down a rabbit’s hole of obsession, harassment, conspiracy, and deep-pocketed malice.

April 1, 2022

Dennis Harvey
48 Hills
‘Tickled’ is not an aesthetically adventurous project, but Farrier and Dylan manage to situate their cameras in inventive places and capture moments that others may have overlooked.

July 9, 2021 | Rating: 3.5/5

Michael J. Casey
Michael J. Cinema
A hilarious and horrifying true story about the world of competitive tickling, to watch with your mouth agape.

May 5, 2021 | Rating: 4/5

Olly Richards
NME
Suffice it to say, Tickled is only ostensibly about “competitive endurance tickling,” which may or may not actually exist depending on who you ask…

April 14, 2021

Jim Rohner
Battleship Pretension
Farrier, with the help of his co-director Dylan Reeve, take us on a trip that goes beyond the world of ‘competitive tickling’. This topsy turvy journey will surprise you, confuse you, anger your, and leave you wanting to hear more…

February 21, 2021 | Rating: 3/5

Heidy Morales
Hye’s Musings
The insane levels of aggression levelled at anyone who walks away tips this fascinating story from one of awkwardly uncomfortable comedy to something much more unsettling, a disturbing thriller of unimaginable psychological abuse and cyber-bullying.

August 26, 2020 | Rating: 4/5

Stephen A. Russell
The New Daily (Australia)…

Plot
David Farrier, a New Zealand pop cultural reporter whose story subjects often verge into the bizarre, believes he’s found his next story when he stumbles across an online video on the world of competitive endurance tickling, a sport where the participants, with hands and feet tied down, are tickled for as long as they can endure. Participants are flown to Los Angeles first class, paid $1,500, and put up for four nights in a luxury hotel. Suitable participants are deemed to be younger, muscular males. The event is held on a monthly basis. In contacting the organizers, US-based Jane O’Brien Media, via their popular Facebook page to arrange for an interview, David receives a return message from one of their representatives, Debbie J. Kuhn, declining the offer, the message a homophobic rant largely against David. In that message, Debbie asserts that the competition is wholly a heterosexual athletic activity, she who does not appreciate what will be David’s assumed gay bent on the story as a homosexual himself (which David does not state he is or isn’t in his request). David finds the message all the more odd as the activity as it appears in the videos has an undeniable gay vibe. What is even more odd is that Debbie on behalf of Jane O’Brien, continually emails David over the following weeks expounding on the themes in the original message. At this time, David’s friend, Dylan Reeve, enters the fray, acting initially as a researcher for David, and then eventually as co-filmmaker for a documentary on the subject. However, the documentary eventually morphs from the sport of competitive endurance tickling into the mysterious world of Jane O’Brien and Debbie Kuhn, especially: as they seem to have unlimited resources both to hold the events and to conduct their online harassment they learn not only of David, but of former associates who now seem to want to distance themselves from the “sport” and Jane O’Brien Media; as Jane and Debbie initiate legal action and threaten even more legal action, and issue general threats time and time against David and Dylan not only for this unauthorized documentary but for their activities toward Jane O’Brien Media as a whole; and as no one seems to know who Debbie or Jane are, even the people that work for them, or what their end goal is, namely what will be done with the resulting videos of the competitions, which populate the Internet. The story takes a further twist when David and Dylan learn there truly is a tickling sexual fetish subculture, one within that community, Richard Ivey, who willingly talks to David and who remembers someone else online decades ago within the community with a similar M.O. to Debbie and Jane.

Trivia