Kenna McHugh is an established freelance writer living in California. Her writing credits include the published book, BREAKING INTO FILM, Film Production book for inner-city kids, three screenplays, seven produced plays and hundreds of how-to videos on the Internet.
"I love the challenge of writing because the end does satisfy the means. The writer is a valuable being. If the words aren't there the message isn't received. It is as simple as that. Give me a circumstance, a theme and away I go at my keyboard."
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It’s a fun horror movie with lots of blood and gore.
Cameron Macgowan wrote and directed Red Letter Day, which is a rambunctious horror-comedy. A recently divorced mother, played by Dawn Van de Schoot, adjusts to a new life in a quiet suburban community. Her two teens, played by Hailey Foss and Kaeleb Zain Gartner, receive mysterious red letters instructing them each to kill or get killed.
The bloodshed begins, and the family finds themselves in a chase against time to defend the people they love from the ones they assumed they knew.
The movie world premiered at the renowned Cinequest Film Festival. It played at other horror fests, including Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, L.A.’s Screamfest, FrightFest London, and both Sydney Underground and Calgary Underground Film Festivals.
The movie is Macgown’s feature directorial debut. His previous work won awards and received critical acclaim worldwide for international film fests, including Fantasia, SXSW, and the Toronto International Film Festival.
The neighborhood nightmare flows well, and the acting is believable, with Schoot carrying the overall story well. The movie is low-budget, but it’s a funny, independent horror movie. I recommend it to diehard horror fans because they have a soft spot in their hearts for films like The Red Letter. Honestly, the special effects were impressive and convincing while entertaining the 75-minute runtime.
Some supporting performances were limited, but I liked the family dynamic, with Schoot strengthening the story. The story held itself with standard horror effects with vats of blood and gore — not a terrible option. The third act is intense, with a clever ending that pays off. I compare it to Stranger Things and Get Out.
The rest of the cast includes Tiffany Helm, Roger LeBlanc, and Peter Strand Rumpel.
The Blu-ray is available, including features such as an audio commentary with the executive producer, director, and cinematographer. The exclusive featurettes Suburban Skirmish—The Making of Red Letter Day and Her Eyes—My Dance through the movies with Actor Tiffany Helm.
Written, directed, and co-produced Janice Engel, the documentary Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins tells the story of media firebrand Molly Ivins. A tall woman of six feet and full of Texas trouble, which took on the Good Old Boy corruption wherever she found it.
Director Janice Engel
Her razor-sharp wit left both sides of the aisle laughing, and craving ink in her columns. She knew the Bill of Rights was in peril and said: “Polarizing people is a good way to win an election and a good way to wreck a country.” Molly’s words have proved prescient. Now it’s up to us to raise hell. In her home state, the 2019 SXSW Festival awarded the documentary “Audience Award Winner.”
Engel first heard about Ivins over six years ago, “My soon-to-be producing partner, James Egan, told me to go see this one-woman play Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins starring Kathleen Turner. So, I did, the last week it was running in LA. I was knocked out by who Molly Ivins was, how she spoke and who she so brilliantly skewered. Both James and I could not believe there had never been anything done on Molly Ivins, so we jumped in full throttle, and here we are six-plus years later.”
Molly Ivins
A well-formulated documentary offers a view of a strong woman in a man’s world. She worked hard and bit hard at what she thought was unfair. Engel explains how she came to know this remarkable woman, “I also discovered on a much more personal level that both Molly and I shared a similar trajectory: a deep distrust of patriarchal authority and a need to stand up for the underdog. Her politics are my politics, and as her pal, Kaye Northcott so aptly says, ‘Molly hated anyone who would basically kick a cripple.’ Me too! Her rallying cry to ‘Raise Hell, that… this our deal, this is our country …that those people up in your state capitols, up in Washington, they’re just the people we’ve hired to drive the bus for a while,’ resonates deeply. She said, ‘If you don’t vote, you can’t bitch, that’s in article 27…’ Ya think! That alone cemented our kinship and my overwhelming passion to share her story.”
The movie tells the story of a woman who changed through decades of working as a journalist – not only physically but spiritually. She worked hard, laughed hard, but I could tell her passion or mission in life had taken its toll. But still, her message resonates with me. We need to vote and hold our position in what we believe. As Engle stated, “I am grateful to be able to share Molly Ivins with her ‘beloveds’ but even more important, introducing to a hungry public who needs her humor, brilliance, and prescience. Molly Ivins challenges all of us to take personal responsibility for political and social issues that impact our lives. RAISE HELL: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins is a lightning rod to get involved in grassroots projects, local and national politics, and voter registration. If we want change, it starts with us.”
I couldn’t agree more. I highly recommend you see this movie about a strong, smart, and fascinating woman, who communicated what we all think about politics. Though I can’t entirely agree with all of her philosophy, I do agree with her passion.
“As we continue her fight, let’s all remember her understanding of what works against the Powers-That-Be,” states Engle.
“The best way to get the sons of bitches is to make people laugh at them.” – Molly Ivins
Written and directed by Aleksey Kozlov, Battle of Leningrad involves World War II’s Siege of Leningrad – in which Nazi Germany blockaded the major Soviet city for 28 months. The situation ranks as perhaps the single most brutal and devastating military campaign in modern history.
Now, the story of horrifying siege told through the lives of people caught in the middle of it in Battle of Leningrad. Produced in Russia, the story began in September 1941. On the Eastern Front of World War II, Kostya, played by Andrey Mironov-Udalov and his fellow Russian cadets tasked with evacuating thousands of civilians out of war-torn Leningrad. The purpose is safety aboard Barge 752.
While Kostya’s commander initially worries that the barge may be too outdated to sail across Lake Ladoga safely, the evacuation completed. Even Kostya finds time to smuggle his fiancé, Nastya, played by Maria Melnikova, aboard the bare to join him on the journey. But tragedy quickly finds them, and the story is about survival.
An unrelenting storm strikes that evening, and Barge 752 begins to break down and leak, threatening to sink. Kostya, Nastya, and the rest of the ship’s occupants are hopeful for rescue the next morning. They find themselves in even greater danger when the first responders are not what they hope them to be — planes to rescue them, but enemy aircraft, geared up for attack.
The film is epic on a grand scale while allowing enough focus intimately on the unique individuals caught up in an enormous tragedy. Kozlov’s movie is similar to Dunkirk, Saving Private Ryan, Stalingrad, and Titanic.
The movie is full of rage with intense circumstances on board the barge with the impending attack plays with remarkable clarity.
The battle scenes are energetic and penetrating along with a dramatic storyline about a time in history that continues to interest storytellers like Kozlov.
Mironov-Udalov and Melnikova bring honesty to their relationship and circumstances. It is through their eyes we experience the horrors of WW II in Russia.
Danish director Mads Brügger and Swedish private investigator Göran Björkdahl attempt and solve the mysterious death of Dag Hammarskjöld. In 1961, United Nations secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld’s plane mysteriously crashed, killing Hammarskjöld and all of the crew. The documentary offers the possibility of the assassination of the outspoken dignitary.
During their investigation, they uncover a crime far worse than killing the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Though the documentary might sound appealing, it is long and arduous to get through because the filmmaker lacks substance to make the movie enjoyable.
However, Cold Case Hammarskjold had its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and is the winner of the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award.
The documentary uses two black women as secretaries, typing Brugger’s script or narrative. For the audience, this is quite confusing because the timeline is convoluted with two different typists. The filmmaker doesn’t explain why he does this until the end of the movie.
He tries to add humor to dire situations, which fall flat and add no meaning to the story.
Around midnight on September 18, 1961, a small plane flying over a remote part of Central Africa crashed, killing all 16 people on board, including then-U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld who was en route to negotiations for a cease-fire in the ongoing Congo Crisis.
The accident was officially blamed on pilot error. However, rumors have persisted for decades that it was a well-planned assassination. But who wanted Hammarskjöld dead, and why?
Swedish private investigator Göran Björkdahl and Mads Brügger
With the twists and turns of an elegantly plotted murder mystery and the intrigue of an international espionage thriller, Cold Case Hammarskjöld winds its way through three continents and almost seven years of investigative reporting. Director Mads Brügger and his colleague, private investigator Göran Björkdahl, follow a series of ever-more-startling leads, red herrings, misdirection, and dead ends. They uncover evidence that puts them on the trail of a story more bizarre than they ever imagined.
From Zambia and South Africa to the U.K., the U.S., Russia, Spain, and beyond, Brügger conducted an estimated 50 interviews with witnesses both central and peripheral to the tale, leading him into a continually widening maze. Known for his offbeat journalistic style, the filmmaker deadpans, “At first, I just enjoyed the idea of two middle-aged Scandinavian men setting out to uncover a conspiracy to kill the Secretary-General of the United Nations. What could go wrong there?”Using vintage news footage and photos as well as exclusive interviews and archival documents, Brügger unveils a journey in which answers only create more questions. What is the meaning of the mysterious playing card found intact on Hammarskjöld’s partially scorched body? Why was an unassuming young marine biologist murdered? What did witnesses see in the sky that night? Could it all be an elaborate hoax perpetrated by an eccentric, highly skilled propagandist?
Danish director Mads Brügger with a local
“For me, Dag Hammarskjöld was most of all a ticket to all the things I really enjoy,” Brügger admits in the film. “Tracking down Belgian mercenaries, telling tales of evil men who dress in white, the ace of spades found at crime scenes, rumors about secret societies. This is why I went along for the ride, not really knowing where it would lead. For almost seven years, Göran and I worked a murder case. But we never dreamed that we were on the verge of discovering a kind of horror that would put my shenanigans to shame.”
Their discovery mildly shocking but has enough push to keep you interested in the movie without giving all the details of the storyline. The documentary falls flat in the end because the story doesn’t seem to arch fully but stays flat throughout the movie. Perhaps, South Africans will find this movie more exciting.
Reviewing a movie that is confusing is a painful task because I find it hard to describe the overall premise of the story. I hope I convey what goes on in the movie.
Written and directed by Tom Botchii Skowronski, Artik takes the horror genre and twists its meaning by add undertones of thrilling situations in dark reds, yellows, and oranges. The storytelling twists and turns into a train wreck of unclear and murky chaos. A comic book fanatic serial killer, Artik, played by Jerry G. Angelo, teaches his son, played by Chase Williamson, and other children on the farm the secret to getting away with serial killing.
A series of brutal murders continue until the boy befriends an enigmatic man, played by Matt Mercer, who warns he will expose everything.
The undertones create a complicated story that is hard to absorb while it lingers in your mind days after seeing the movie. Artik is a sick, horrific character who uses his son Holton to suit his own macabre. Holton becomes an inadvertent allies young Adam, played by Gavin White. Adam is a neglected and abused boy, heading down a diabolical, dark path, which makes him easy pickings for Artik.
The unlikely friendship sets off a precarious circumstance after circumstance, one after the other, which will leave your jaw hanging more than once on the floor. Adam’s mother, Flin Brays, played by Lauren Ashley Carter, joins Artik and interacts with Adam. The undertones, again, come into play with neither Flin or Artik being honest with Adam.
The audience experiences a couple of sucker punches at the beginning. They are meant to fool the audience. The deception is sufficient for the development of the story. A few points in the movie leave one to assume they know what is going on in the story, but the situations don’t make sense.
Watching Artik is like watching a long, crazy disaster happening, though the movie is 77 minutes long. I asked myself several times, “Why am I watching this?”
It’s horrifying, disturbing, and gruesome, yet the story pulls at you to watch and discover how the insanity resolves.
The story doesn’t make sense, but exploring the argument that serial killers are born, not made by their environment, is one of the undertones that never delivers the answer. The movie is complex because there are many children in the movie. It is hard to recognize their son from the children.
Risking both his mental and physical well being, Holton’s investigation into what happened to his Al-Anon sponsor leaves behind a trail of blood and violence. With relentlessly growing intensity, Artik heads for a destructive, action-filled showdown.
Skowronski says the story is about growth wrapped inside a “genre sealed envelope.” “The character of Artik is based around my dad, who passed away three years ago. While the character of Holton is based around an ex-girlfriend, drawing from within is where the film’s tagline comes from, and I really hope it helps everyone out there turn the negatives in their life into motivation.”
He wanted to create a dynamic that pushes a straight edge character, that is entirely drug-free. “It’s been commonplace with film characters being developed around the idea that there is a cool factor behind drugs and alcohol, and I wanted to present the opposite. I’ve never seen it in film before, and I’m tired of seeing the same types of characters. Not drinking takes lots of balls, and the Holton character explores that a lot.”
The movie is based on an epic science-fiction poem.
Written and directed by Pella Kagerman and Hugo Lilja, Aniara is their first feature film. Based on an epic 1956 science fiction poem by Harry Martinson, Kagerman shared the poem with his grandmother while she was in a hospital recovering from a stroke. “Growing up, I was very close to my grandmother. She was extremely playful and interested in literature. We often role-played books we had read, even when I got older,” explains Kagerman. “Together we went to see a theater play of Aniara. The following night she got a stroke. I started to read the book aloud to her at the hospital. As she was getting better, we started to role-play it and pretend that the big hospital was the space ship Aniara. Every doctor and patient its passengers. That’s when the story truly hit me and us, on a very deep level.”
Aniara is the space ship forced off the flight path from Earth to Mars.
Kagerman and Lilja worked with each other for over ten years now. “And since the beginning of our collaboration, we’ve been highly influenced by each other and stolen each other’s interests,” jests Lilja.
The movie is beautiful but heart-wrenching and not a story for the faint of heart because it is sensitively intense. The imagery and story haunt you after the end of the movie because it is intelligent. The movie is not uplifting but more of sociological look at, according to Martinson, where the Earth populace is headed.
The movie introduces one of the many spaceships used for transporting Earth’s fleeing population to their new home-planet Mars. The destruction of Earth occurs, and before the crew and passengers become accustomed to being in space, she collides with space junk and thrown off course. The passengers slowly realize that they’ll never be able to return.
Mimaroben played by Emelie Jonsson.
Mimaroben, played by Emelie Jonsson in her first feature film leading role, runs a room where a sentient computer allows humans to experience near-spiritual memories of the Earth.
As the ship drifts further into the endless void more and more passengers require Mimaroben’s services and stress of the job builds on her as she is the only one who can keep the growing insanity and lethal depression at bay.
In Aniara’s inexorable journey towards destruction, there is a warning that cannot be emphasized enough. There’s only one Earth. It’s time to take responsibility for our actions.
The movie is in Swedish with English subtitles, so finding Aniara in English is not offered. The directors felt the necessity to bring the story to the silver screen. “The apocalypse has already started, hasn’t it? There’s a risk that Aniara might become our future, and the questions the film deals with are extremely relevant today,” adds Kagerman.
Mimaroben has a relationship with another woman.
Though Martinson’s poem is ambiguous on whether the main character is a man or a woman, Kagerman and Lilja felt it essential to focus on a woman while the overall movie centers on females. “It’s not 100% clear what gender the main character has in the book, although it’s probably a man,” explains Lilja. “But we love our female lead and always had her in mind. In the film, she has a relationship with another woman and her best friend, the astronomer, is a woman.”
The movie’s special effects are low-key without extensive CGI or expensive science-fiction sets. Filming occurred on location in shopping malls and Scandinavian Ferries with set design by Linnea Petterson and Maja-Stina Asberg. The directors wanted to create a here and now feeling. “We wanted the ship to feel familiar. If we were to emigrate in large scale to Mars today, we’re pretty sure that the ships will contain both shopping malls, bowling, and spas. But especially shopping malls,” explains Kagerman.
It took the two directors four years to complete the movie with most the time spent in post-production with reshoots to add to the storyline. They shot inserts in their living room and at the farm where Sophie Winqvist Loggins, cinematographer, lives in the south of Sweden.
Aniara won several awards on the film festival circuit including Les Arcs European Film Festival Best Actress for Emelie Jonsson and honorable mention for Kagerman and Lilja. T
Aniara is streaming on Amazon and the usual on-demand platforms available in your region.
Martinson message in his poem is serious as a warning to the people of Earth. The directors want the audience to reflect on the spacecraft they’re already onboard, called Earth and the extremely short period we have on it. “It might sound depressing, but it’s actually the opposite. We are here today. There is still some time,” adds Kagerman and Lilja.
Dogman is an Italian movie in English subtitles. Co-written
and directed by Matteo Garrone, the story takes place at a seaside village on
the outskirts of an Italian city, where the only law seems to be survival of
the fittest.
The story focuses on Marcello, played by Marcello Fonte, who won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his role of playing a slight, mild-mannered man. He divides his days between working at his modest dog grooming salon, caring for his daughter Alida, played by Alida Baldari Calabria, and being coerced into the petty criminal schemes of the local bully Simoncino, played by Edoardo Pesce. He is an ex-boxer who terrorizes the neighborhood. Simoncino’ s abuse eventually brings Marcello to a breaking point. He decides to stand up for his dignity through an act of vengeance. The vengeance comes with unintentional consequences.
Marcello Fonte is Marcello a professional dog groomer by day.
The movie opens with an image of dogs in cages and looking
out at humanity. Even though the movie is about vengeance, it also about bullying
– struggle between the strong and the weak. Watching the trailer, the viewer might get the
idea that Dogman is an extreme story with violence.
Garrone puts forward an idea that concerns all of us, and that is the consequence of the daily choices we make to survive. One yes leads to more yeses eventually, like Marcello, he can no longer say no. While watching the movie, I kept thinking that Marcello is a pushover or “too nice” for his own good. He gradually, under duress, loses his innocence.
Nicolaj Bruel effectively shoots the movie with dark undertones,
bright reds, and blues. The locations fit the storyline of a small town.
Marcello Fonte is Marcello.
It is Fonte’s sweetness and his antique face, that brings the story to fruition. How he approaches the dark material while still maintaining his naivete is a unique quality of acting. His interplay with Calabria as his daughter, Alida, are precious moments with Simoncino lurking in the undertones even when he is not in the scenes.
Garrone wrote the story with Ugo Chiti and Massimo Gaudioso. In the production notes, he defines his movie as, “a man who, while seeking redemption after a life of humiliation, fools himself into believing that he has liberated not only himself, but his whole neighborhood, and maybe even the world. Which instead remains always the same, and almost indifferent.”
Written and directed by Benedikt Erlingsson, Woman of War follows Halla, played by Halldóra Geirharðsdótti, who seems mild-mannered and friendly to her neighbors. On the contrary, she is a vigilante against the aluminum industry. At night, she crusades to destroy the polluters and causes of climate change.
The newspapers report the vandalism calling her plight as “The Woman of the Mountain.” Halla is scathing mad using a vicious, yet effective, tirade against the Iceland aluminum industry. Her campaign keeps her functioning “normal” but jeopardizes her dream.
A dream of becoming a mother to an orphaned girl from Ukraine, Halla ups the ante, becoming more daring with her antics to stop the aluminum company. She finds herself fighting against time as she questions whether her second life as a notorious eco-terrorist is worth the sacrifice of her impending motherhood.
Filmed with the vivid backdrop of hills in Reykjavik, Iceland, the movie marks another collaboration with Erlingsson and Geirharðsdótti’s long working relationship. I admire Erlingsson’s ability to infuse drama and comedy while Geirharðsdótti’s knack for subtle points of humor drew me into the story. Her vicious tenacity and heart could have gone overboard but pulled back just in time with the introduction of fabled motherhood and discovering what it signifies to be a hero.
Geirharðsdótti carries the story of Halla, a 50-year-old independent woman with a quiet routine, though she leads a double life as a passionate environmental activist. The humor is subtle but effective as the drama builds, and she becomes bolder and bolder from petty vandalism to outright industrial sabotage. She triumphs pausing the negotiations between the Icelandic government and the corporation building a new aluminum smelter in her region.
The story shifts when Halla receives an unexpected letter confirming the adoption of a child. A little girl who waits for her in Ukraine. As Halla prepares to abandon her role as saboteur and savior of the Highlands to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother, she decides to plot one final attack to deliver the aluminum industry a crippling blow.
The final attack is suspenseful because “What if she gets caught?” Her goal to be a mother is no longer achievable. All her efforts are in vain, yet her crusade is for the children like her adopted daughter—securing a livable planet for the generations to come.
Watching the
movie until the end is worth it, though there are subtitles. DVDs are available
in the States with streaming available on the usual outlets.
Directed by Kate Novack, the documentary The Gospel According to Andre is about Andre Leon Talley life. A fixture in the world of fashion for so long, it’s difficult to imagine a time when he wasn’t defining the boundaries of great style.
I found the movie as an intimate portrait that took me on an emotional journey from Andre’s roots growing up in the segregated Jim Crow South to become one of the most influential fashion and trend curators of our times.
Novack’s movie is fascinating as she explores between the elegance of André’s beloved grandmother and the Black Church of his youth and his work at publications like Women’s Wear Daily, W, and Vogue. The documentary shares a wealth of archival footage from moments in fashion history while noting André’s life and career.
Novack’s grandfather was in the dress business, and she visited his factory in Lowell, Massachusetts. “So, fashion was kind of in my DNA. I’d seen Andre in so many fashion documentaries—I think that my last count was fourteen. And he wasn’t just in them. He had these scene-stealing roles. But they always had the feel of a performance.”
“Andre talks about a hymn that he always loved in church, that still brings him to tears, called ‘Precious Memories.’ I listened to that song, and it was so moving. It’s about the way that memory can act as a sustaining force. That was really the entry point and the vision, and that song now plays a prominent role in the film.”
The Gospel According to Andre is Novack’s first attempt at solo directing. “It just felt like the right story at the right moment. It felt like a moment where the story of this African American man—because, in many ways, I view the movie as being as much about one African American man’s experience in America as it is about fashion—was important and urgent. There’s a line from Eboni at the beginning of the movie about how Andre is a legend in mainstream culture, and he’s also a tall Black man in America from the American South and that there would always be great tension there. That really became an organizing principle in the film.”
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Dustin Pittman/Penske Media/REX/Shutterstock (6905689a)
Paloma Picasso and Rafael Lopez-Sanchez talk to Andre Leon Talley in the front row during a benefit runway show of Chloe by Karl Lagerfeld for the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, held at Christies.
Chloe Benefit Fashion Show at Christies, New York
Andre saw the movie, and his first impression was elation, being with friends and viewing images. “Kate threaded the narratives through the sophisticated research she had done. Her research is phenomenal! She had gone back and researched, contextually, my life story from its humble beginnings all the way to Brown, my theses and reviews from when I went to Paris and the great shows of Yves Saint Laurent in 1978.”
Andre explains how it “was an enchantment, but, at the same time, an experience that I would consider—I’m not a vain person—microscopic.”
Mandatory Credit: Photo by John Bright/Penske Media/REX/Shutterstock (6906729e)
Singer and actress Diana Ross in a full ruffled skirt dancing with Andre Leon Talley at a New Year’s Eve party at Studio 54 in New York
New Year’s Eve at Studio 54, New York
“A documentary is meant to be truthful, and it is Kate’s story, it is definitely her story, but, being so creative in my life, and an editor, I would have, in hindsight, made a contract to have a full make-up artist on hand at all times. Having come from the world of Vogue, part of the armor is that you are professionally groomed and, on a cold, bitter morning in North Carolina, that was just me coming out and I… would have had a makeup artist.”
Despite showing Andre without makeup meant he is who he is. “I opened my heart, and I opened my life, and I opened my home, and I opened my history and opened all my friends. The people that are in the doc are the people that are of great value to my life.”
Co-directed by David Farrier and Dylan Reeves, the documentary Tickled formulated when Farrier stumbled upon a bizarre “competitive endurance tickling” video online. He saw young men paid to be tied up and tickled.
As a reporter, Farrier reached out and requested a story about the company. He receives a staggering replay where he is mocked about his sexual orientation and threatened extreme legal action if he digs any deeper into the company.
Unlike most journalists, he decides not to confront the issue, circumvents, and travels to the hidden tickling facilities in Los Angeles. There he uncovers a vast empire, known for harassing and harming the lives of those who protest their involvement in these films.
The more he investigates, the stranger it gets. He discovers secret identities and criminal activity. It becomes an obsession for him where he must discover the truth, despite increasingly malevolent threats and warnings.
Keeping with the humor of the situation and determination, Farrier and co-director Reeve gather all the resources available to get to the bottom of this tickling instances.
Recently, Farrier shared his story, “It started as most stories start: A friend emailed me a link to something interesting on the Internet. In this case: Competitive Endurance Tickling. It was strange from the outset, but as I began talking with the organizers, things rapidly spiraled out of control. A whole new world opened up in front of me – a world of tickling and laughter, but also lawsuits and danger.”
Farrier came under attack including private investigators and lawyers in New Zealand and the United States. “I soon came to realize this wasn’t just a story about tickling: It was about power and control.”
On his journey to uncover the truth, “I met characters I could hardly believe were real.”
Farrier refers to the cheerful professional who tickles others as a full-time job, the obsessed journalist who dedicated years of his life to uncovering the truth, and the young athlete who had his life derailed by a force he never saw coming. “Like me, these individuals all stumbled into the world of tickling with a slight naivety, but came to understand its complexity first-hand.”
Co-director Reeve tells his story of why he became involved in the documentary. He describes how he first saw David’s strange interaction with Jane O’Brien Media on Facebook. “My attention was grabbed. It was an unbelievable response to a very tame interview request, and clearly, something just wasn’t right.”
Reeve is referring to online bullying. “As we started to see evidence of the campaigns of harassment and abuse, I felt that we had no choice but to expose what was happening.”
They used the power of storytelling as the weapon to go against the bullying. “It was something I felt strongly that we had to do, whatever the consequences may be. Although at that stage I still had no idea what would come,” explains Reeve.
“The twists and turns we uncovered in chasing the story were at times exciting, alarming, surprising, scary and hilarious. We never quite knew what was real and what was fake. Were we being played? Was that car following us? Did Jane know where we were? Were we going to end up in court? We never quite knew what was around the corner.”
The end result is something both directors feel proud to have made. “I hope that is both informative and entertaining, but above all, I hope that it can actually make a difference – that the film might prevent further harassment in the future for guys who’ve done nothing wrong,” concludes Reeve.
