Tickled: A Disturbing Documentary On Competitive Endurance Tickling

Farrier found a video of "competitive endurance tickling" while searching for new stories for his job as a New Zealand television reporter.

The video shows young men tickling one person strapped down by wrists and ankles. What starts as funny quickly becomes uncomfortable, even disturbing—a clear path for the rest of this messed-up documentary.

Farrier became interested in the video, so he contacted Jane O'Brien Media, the company behind the videos.

Instead of an answer, Farrier got homophobic attacks. The first message stated, "To be brutally frank, association with a homosexual journalist is not something that [we] will embrace. We desperately do not want a homosexual participant base applying for this project." Farrier continued to get homophobic and threatening emails for weeks.

Many people would have stopped there, realizing they dealt with a homophobe or someone mentally ill. Farrier kept going anyway.

Jane O'Brien Media eventually sent three men on first-class flights from Los Angeles to New Zealand to face Farrier. After they became upset that Farrier and Reeve were filming, they asked for a closed-door meeting.

Farrier wore a mic and recorded a chilling threat: "If you want to stick your head in a blast furnace, do it." This meeting made the story more intense; it showed how far the shadowy figure behind the videos would go to stay anonymous.

As threats kept coming, Farrier and Reeve met with TJ Gretzner, one of the few young men willing to talk about their experiences.

TJ had been lied to and used to get him into this tickling activity. Once he decided to stop the videos, his entire life started falling apart.

TJ explained, "All hell broke loose." He added, "Every kind of video search you could find, it was up there." He recounted an email saying, "Your family better watch out because we're going to put your family to shame," which contained direct threats.

Farrier and Reeve decide to stake out filming for the competitive endurance tickling. Farrier explains, "We could hear laughter coming out of the vent." The audio recording sounds eerie. Ferrier reflects on the experience live, saying, "This is f*cking creepy as f*ck."

Moments later, Farrier and Reeve saw the three men they had met and been threatened by in New Zealand. Farrier decided to confront them.

As soon as they see Farrier, however, the threats begin once again, with the most verbally aggressive Jane O'Brien employee, Kevin, saying, "Shut the door and I'm calling the police. Bye."

Farrier did all of this knowing that pending lawsuits were already against him in both New Zealand and the U.S., making his decision to confront the video shoot that much more brave, and the scenario that much more anxiety inducing for us watching at home.

To better understand the tickling fetish, Farrier and Reeve travel to Florida to meet with Richard Ivey, another tickling fetishist who owns and runs several fetish sites.

While Ivey seems to be an honest man, with his actors and models being much more aware of what they are doing, a montage of Ivey tickling one of his models, while he is strapped down in a specially designed chair, is nonetheless, quite intense.

The actor squirms and flexes as he strains to get away from Ivey's tickling fingers, and we are forced to do nothing but watch in pure astonishment at this previously unknown subculture of bondage and fetish.

Anytime a documentary includes a faceless testimonial, you know things are getting dark. A former participant who goes by the name "Alden" recounts his experience of being caught up in the tickling ring. "It was an assault not just on me, but on my family," he says.

"It was ruining my life at the time, that's how I felt. It was certainly affecting my ability to function." Adding, "It's like you lose control of your life."

Thanks to David Starr, a former videographer for "Terri DiSisto" (alias Terri Tickle) - a woman who seemed to have operated in the same way as Jane O'Brien ten years previous - we get closer to the truth behind the videos, and those who have been victimized by them.

Starr explains that once he discovered the videos he was recording were being released on the Internet against the actors's will, he quit. That's when he became a target of threats with what he called the "phone blaster."

Thanks to his record-keeping, we get to hear one of the phone blasters, which is read by a robotic female voice with a British accent, making the words all the more chilling: "You have been identified as a known associate of homosexual pornographer David W. Starr," the phone blaster says. "Your phone number, personal information and your precise to David Starr are entirely known and subject to publication on the Internet."

As Starr remembers the experience, he says, "This persons on drugs. This persons gotta be on crystal or something. Or taking cocaine up the a**, or something like that! It was weird."

Journalist Deborah Scoblionkov appears in the film to explain that through a correspondence with Terri Tickle through her AOL email address, she was able to get a glimpse into the world of the person behind the videos, the threats, and the pain.

"We would have these chats late at night," Scoblionkov says. "I could just hear this voice. It went on; she acted like she was totally intoxicated by this power, and she had to be so destructive against people."

Farrier finally shows the filmmaking team found a zip drive. That drive held much of the information Terri Tickle used against her victims. The zip file also showed Terri Tickle's real identity: David D'Amato, an assistant principal for high school students.

His past darkness surfaces. He worked at eight schools in ten years. D'Amato gained Terri Tickle's identity. He used the social security number of a woman who died in 1995.

Authorities arrested D'Amato that same week. Despite his crimes, he received a light sentence because his father was a high-powered lawyer in Manhattan.

Farrier discovered Terri Tickle's identity. Still, he did not know he was also the person behind Jane O'Brien Media. Farrier held his assumptions. "Since the mid-nineties, David D'Amato has never stopped finding strange ways to get young men to tickle each other. His Terri Tickle persona dropped off the radar around 2006. Jane O'Brien arrived later."

Farrier and Reeve seek the truth in Muskegon, MI. This is a low-income community. Many boys in the local MMA community got recruited to star in the tickle films.

The documentary shows Jane O'Brien targets young men across America. She set up "tickle cells" globally. These cells target poor, young, handsome men attracted to quick money.

In Muskegon, Jane O'Brien Media targeted fighters in the local MMA ring. The film explains that tickling someone to escape a submission hold in MMA is not illegal. Jane tried to use this idea to recruit new actors for her videos.

Farrier seeks to find how D'Amato pays for his expensive tickling ring, which brings in no income. He calls employees at D'Amato & Lynch LLP. The reaction to Farrier asking about D'Amato's links to the firm shocks him. His father's former secretary warned:

"Stay away from him. That is all I can tell you. Stay away from him."

The interaction between Farrier and D'Amato is sad, stunning, and bizarre. Though D'Amato threatened hundreds of men online with his tickling videos, he ran from the camera. He even threatened to revoke Farrier's visa and warned Reeve before closing his car door, saying:

"You shouldn't be doing that."

Farrier checked because the evidence suggested D'Amato was Jane O'Brien. They went back to the internet domain names for tickling. Farrier found a folder named "My Files." This showed D'Amato and Jane O'Brien are the same person.

The reveal felt thrilling, though expected. The same sword D'Amato used against his victims for over twenty years exposed him.

Files show D'Amato funded his tickling empire. He used a massive trust fund from both families, near $6 million, and a $30,000 monthly transfer.

D'Amato impersonated lawyers who threatened Farrier and Reeve. Farrier stated, "Many things connected to D'Amato were just lies. Lies to support his addiction to tickling videos."

When Farrier learned the truth, he said, "I now think this was never about tickling. This is about power, control, and harassment. It is about one person's twistedness and how far that can go." He added, "but now his life is exposed, for once, it's him on camera."

Farrier finally contacted one of D'Amato's last living relatives: his stepmother, Dorothy.

Farrier explained D'Amato returned to tickling. Dorothy admitted she had no contact with him and thought the videos stopped. She said, "I'm like in shock."

When Dorothy asked Farrier how long D'Amato filmed since prison, Farrier admitted, "It's never stopped."

Dorothy shared D'Amato's life. She was unsure if he was gay or asexual. He had a hard childhood, facing constant bullying and an over-protective mother. She finally admitted, "I was afraid of him. Because I'm alone... and I was afraid of him. I'm afraid of him."

To make this film and the story around it more intense, it happened at the Los Angeles premiere.The premiere happened at the Nuart theater.At the Nuart theater, David D'Amato and Kevin Clarke confronted Reeve after the premiere. They accused Reeve and Farrier of lying, stating:

"The point is if you promise something is off the record, it should be off the record."

The final part of Tickled.Tickled.The most intense thing on HBO is the final chapter of David D'Amato. On March 13th, D'Amato died suddenly at age 55. According to The New York Times,The New York Times said the death was sudden, and no other details were given.The death was sudden. No other details were provided.

D'Amato's death leaves much of this story unknown. We will never truly know why D'Amato was so driven by his perverse fetish for tickling and control.