Tickled

Tickled follows the bizarre trail of dead ends uncovered when New Zealand pop culture journalist David Farrier discovers the presumably tiny world of Competitive Endurance Tickling, fully clothed scenarios in which three or four athletic young men pile on top of another guy and tickle him for minutes at a time. On camera, of course. It’s totally not gay, the producers say, but that’s not the weird part. What follows comes off like a particularly insane Dateline exposé, as reps from sinister Jane O’Brien Media clash with the nerdy filmmakers. (Several scenes are stolen by Farrier’s t-shirt collection.) Ultimately, the film is a pretty meta look at the challenges of independent journalism than a look into a possibly imaginary tickling subculture.