If you like your facts stranger than fiction, you’ll be tickled by TICKLED, a Kiwi documentary that initially sets out to be about an extreme sport called competitive endurance tickling, but turns out to be something even stranger.

New Zealand Journalist David Farrier stumbles upon a mysterious tickling competition online, which piques his professional interest. There could be a real story here, he thinks.

Identifying himself as a reporter, he requests info and interview from the organisers. Not only does he get a response declining a story but receives a continued and harried homophobic attack via an avalanche of emails.

The torrent of vitriol galvanises Farrier to delve deeper, and he comes up against fierce resistance, which includes a trio of attorneys flying into Auckland first class Air New Zealand from Los Angeles.

The more he is harassed, Farrier becomes a terrier for the truth behind this intimidation, and he and his cameraman, Dylan Reeve, jet off to America to investigate a story that gets more bizarre by the minute.

Being from New Zealand, audiences may think this is a piss take mockumentary, like the glorious What We Do In The Shadows, but TICKLED, despite its playful title, is a shockingly real investigation into cyber bullying and the sinister side of fetish.

The mastermind behind the tickling tournaments turns out to be a millionaire megalomaniac who runs his stable of athletes like a remote control cult. Once in, you’re never allowed out. Defectors have their lives trashed on the internet.

After sold-out screenings at the Sydney Film Festival, TICKLED is shaping up as one of the hottest movies of the year, already on Oscar and ‘Best Of’ lists the world over.

Thrilling, chilling, and laugh out loud, TICKLED is a bit like tickling and being tickled – a teasing, weird pleasure.

PS. Seeing the next Olympics are in Tokyo, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the strange sport of Competitive Endurance Tickling added to the fixture.