David Farrier, a New Zealand reporter tasked with finding human interest stories stumbles upon a competitive tickling website and decides to cover the “sport.” Before long, he’s getting threats from an overseas entity both legal and personal. David comes to the United States to investigate further and uncovers some sort of evil fetish tickling ring. It’s been in existence since the mid-nineties and, as he discovers, there are different entities on the Internet that are all tied together. Things get uglier when he traces the whole thing back to a weirdo living in New York, a guy with a lot of money and a law degree.

Farrier and co-director Dylan Reeve deliver a film that’s somewhere in the Catfish mode of documentary moviemaking. It winds up being an interesting story about control, bullying, and to a lessor extent, tickling.

The whole thing is pretty messed up, with a long history of young men being terrorized and, in the case of this particular reporter, being attacked on all aspects of his personality. The whole thing starts out funny and happy, and goes to a surprisingly dark place. This one will make you feel real dirty if you have a thing for tickle videos.