The story unveiled by Tickled is bizarre, is weird, is scary and even horrifying. It starts as one of Ferrier's usual researches for an odd story. He found an odd tickling sporting competition sponsored by an American company, contacted the company and the abuse and threats immediately began. Being bullied and threatened didn't stop Ferrier, on the contrary pushed Ferrier and his cameraman Reeve to pursue the story further. They ended unveiling why such an innocent thing as tickling has some people in the USA angry about being investigated, and whom these people exactly are. Tickled unveils a sub-world that is equally amusing, ridiculous and disturbing, and that tickling movies aren't such an innocent thing.
This is an indie documentary, made with not many means, and therefore, even more valuable, as the bullying and pressure these guys had could not be counterbalanced with, say, the support of a news channel or a corporation. The investigation is well carried out, and they really dig deeper into the funny-not-so-funny world of tickling despite the pressure not to do so. The lack of means also shows in the form of shortcomings to carry out the research.
I found a few things I thought deserved a different treatment or more research and digging. Firstly, these guys didn't take enough precautions to protect some of the confidants, those willing to speak about the bad guy off camera. If you record a conversation of a confidant who is scared of the bad guy and then reproduce the conversation on camera without voice distortion and without protecting the identity of that person, you are turning that person into a target. Besides, I would have loved more details about the nasty guy, especially about his work as educator in different schools and his life in jail. Why not interviewing some of his co-workers at the High Schools he worked? Was he weird? Did he show any odd behavior with youngsters? Was he a problematic person? Was he in good terms with other teachers? Also, this guy was tried and sent to jail in the past, so there must be a humongous amount of information about him in the lawsuit paperwork, and plenty of people he met in jail who might help provide a better profile of this disturbed dangerous guy.
Overall, this is an amazing story, and a very interesting and entertaining documentary. In my case, I discovered that tickling is fetish, and that the guy behind the company is actually a mentally disturbed person with some sort of sexual dysfunction and denial of his own gayness and, most importantly a bully with tons of money, a teacher turned lawyer, a ruthless person who punishes anybody who doesn't do what he wants, by destroying their reputation and their lives.
Kudos to Ferrier and Reeve for such a great investigation. I hope they are able to get more money so they can dig further, get proper legal protection, and offered more privacy to their confidants.
This is an indie documentary, made with not many means, and therefore, even more valuable, as the bullying and pressure these guys had could not be counterbalanced with, say, the support of a news channel or a corporation. The investigation is well carried out, and they really dig deeper into the funny-not-so-funny world of tickling despite the pressure not to do so. The lack of means also shows in the form of shortcomings to carry out the research.
I found a few things I thought deserved a different treatment or more research and digging. Firstly, these guys didn't take enough precautions to protect some of the confidants, those willing to speak about the bad guy off camera. If you record a conversation of a confidant who is scared of the bad guy and then reproduce the conversation on camera without voice distortion and without protecting the identity of that person, you are turning that person into a target. Besides, I would have loved more details about the nasty guy, especially about his work as educator in different schools and his life in jail. Why not interviewing some of his co-workers at the High Schools he worked? Was he weird? Did he show any odd behavior with youngsters? Was he a problematic person? Was he in good terms with other teachers? Also, this guy was tried and sent to jail in the past, so there must be a humongous amount of information about him in the lawsuit paperwork, and plenty of people he met in jail who might help provide a better profile of this disturbed dangerous guy.
Overall, this is an amazing story, and a very interesting and entertaining documentary. In my case, I discovered that tickling is fetish, and that the guy behind the company is actually a mentally disturbed person with some sort of sexual dysfunction and denial of his own gayness and, most importantly a bully with tons of money, a teacher turned lawyer, a ruthless person who punishes anybody who doesn't do what he wants, by destroying their reputation and their lives.
Kudos to Ferrier and Reeve for such a great investigation. I hope they are able to get more money so they can dig further, get proper legal protection, and offered more privacy to their confidants.