Filmmaker, podcaster, and journalist David Farrier has spent years pursuing answers to all manner of questions, with the only consistency between his discoveries being that he can never really predict where any of these journeys will end up. Take his film Tickled, for example, which began with an investigation into viral videos featuring “competitive endurance tickling” and ultimately unraveled years of blackmail, coercion, and harassment from a mysterious and wealthy figure. Farrier’s latest film, Mister Organ, similarly starts with what feels like a fairly innocuous inquiry, only to result in arguably his most harrowing and emotionally destructive experience yet. Mister Organ opens in New York and Los Angeles on October 6th and opens wide on October 13th.
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Mister Organ is described, “Intrepid journalist and filmmaker David Farrier, whose previous film Tickled became a global sensation for exposing the dark underbelly of competitive endurance tickling, faces off against his greatest foe yet in Mister Organ, an enthralling and bizarre tale that finds Farrier in a dangerous game of cat and mouse with a mysterious con man who is wreaking havoc on his neighborhood.”
ComicBook.com caught up with Farrier to talk Mister Organ, the impact of the experience, and more.
David Farrier: Oh, [a Sunn O))) shirt]? F-ck, I just saw them play for the first time last year. My God.
ComicBook.com: The winter tour?
They were with … It was different from their normal setup, apparently. They had a big wall of speakers behind them.
Sounds on brand.
Maybe it does sound on brand. Anyway, it was just a lot, and I really enjoyed it.
This is from their most recent tour, and I would say it was better than other tours. Somehow it gets, believe it or not, Sunn O))) can get redundant, but something about this tour … I don’t know, I was more engaged than I normally was.
I saw them at the Lodge Room, in L.A., which was an old Masonic lodge, and it was a really cool venue. And yeah, it was good.
Well, honestly, that does relate to one of the most important things that I wanted to talk about. As soon as I watched Mister Organ, I went to check on you to make sure you were doing okay. I went to your Instagram, and you had posted a story of a screenshot of, I can’t remember what song, but it was an Isis song off of Panopticon. So thank you for the Panopticon representation, that’s my favorite Isis album.
I adore that band. Actually, back in 2018, I was staying in Eagle Rock, in L.A., and my neighbor was Aaron from Isis, and he was one of the first persons I told about Mister Organ. The band had come back to pay tribute for one of their friends, it was a special show they played. I went along, I talked to him backstage, and I was just talking about this documentary idea. And yeah, that was Mister Organ. Anyway, I love that band and I love those guys.
See, it’s all connected. I wasn’t just randomly bringing up Isis.
Yeah, and I invited him along. I’ve booked a theater at the Alamo, just to show friends and family and stuff, and he’s one of the people that’s coming along, so I’m excited to show him.
Well, we should talk about Mister Oregon at least a little bit, before my time is up. Between Webworm and Flightless Bird, between all the different things that you’re doing, just exploring various corners of things that interest you or concern you or pique your curiosity, this situation with Mister Organ, the parking clamping, when was the moment that you thought, “Okay, I have enough here to definitely develop a documentary out of it,”?
I think it came about a year and a half in. I’d been writing about this really eccentric man in New Zealand, who would put a wheel clamp on people’s cars when they left, and would then swindle them out of money. So there were a lot of versions of that, and there was a lot of wacky elements. But then, I started hearing mumblings in New Zealand around 2018, that he had had some dark influences on people. Sure, he was a con man, but he had also wiggled into other people’s lives, and really derailed people.
When I saw that psychological aspect to it, that’s when I thought, “Oh, I’d actually like to start telling this visually.” I’d been waiting for something to sink my teeth into, after Dark Tourist and Tickled. And just the number of characters that started popping up around him, when I started poking into some of these darker areas, they all seemed just really interesting to me. And yes, eventually writing about something is great, to a point. But then, I think, certain things show that it should be told visually and that’s what happened with this.
Whether it is Mister Organ or any of the other subjects you’ve explored, I understand that you have an outlet, you have an avenue, that you can provide regular updates about, or more frequent updates about. With Mister Organ, with Tickled, or something that you put a more definitive cap on, how do you know when to put that cap on? How do you know that you couldn’t have done another, even just a few months, with Mister Organ?
It’s so tricky. Well, one thing I learned from doing Tickled is that whenever you put the end on something, there’ll always be more, so there’s never an end. You would shoot things forever, otherwise. Tickled ended, suddenly I’m being sued twice in United States courts. That would make a really interesting part of Tickled, this courtroom drama, but I think you just get a sense of it in each story.
With Mister Organ, I set out to find out how this man operated, and why he was doing the things he was doing. When I got those things answered in a way that satisfied me, I just knew I had to stop, and put an end on things. I knew things would continue, as they did, but a few things happened. We ended up at this old psychiatric hospital towards the end of the film, and that was towards the end of my process. I just met a man who was incredibly damaged, but also, he lived at this old, shut-down psychiatric hospital.
He had so much insight, and said things — the whole film would turn into this psychological model, but he came through with so much clarity that I knew I had an end, and I knew I wanted to have that as the end. That was just something I knew in my gut, and that’s what the end of the film was.
I felt it was a powerful reveal for what your film intentionally and unintentionally says, just about human nature and human psyches. I saw an interview you did a few months back, where you said that you wouldn’t make this again. Going along with that, even if you don’t feel like you would make this again, do you feel you regret this entire experience?
No, I don’t regret the entire experience. I feel really proud of what me and the team have made, and I think it’s a deeply weird story, which is the stuff I like to make. I also think it speaks on behalf of the various victims that were involved. I feel really proud that their stories are out there.
The most rewarding thing is that people that have seen it at festivals, this is the feedback I get from some people, is that they see versions of Mr. Organ and people in their own lives, and they’re like, “F-ck, I know this kind of guy,” and this acts as a warning and also a nod, that they’re not alone in this thing, and I find that really rewarding.
That was the dream result, is people clocking their own Mr. Organs in their own lives. At the same time, it’s a Catch-22, because it was a really unpleasant, especially towards the end, process to make it. I still struggle with, would I rather have six years where I didn’t have to think about this man at all? And that’s a really tempting road to go down. But in saying that, I feel really proud of the response from audiences that have seen it. That’s pretty validating, as well. But, at times, you’re very tempted to just wish it all away.
You mentioned what has been so rewarding about the movie coming out, and so, going along with that, and your experiences of making it, how do you feel you have most changed? Other audiences can connect with the character of Mr. Organ, what do you feel you have taken away from the experience, either personally or professionally, releasing the documentary?
I think I’ve learned a lot about perseverance. It’s happened with all my projects, Tickled and Dark Tourist. I’ll hit a point where I just want it all to go away, and I’m just, “I hate what this is as a film. I hate what it’s doing to me. I think it’s worthless.”
Everything I make, I go through that, and I definitely did that with Mister Organ, and elements of that are in the film, which is hard for me to watch back. But I think I am beginning to learn that it is worth persevering, and going through this process. Because, eventually, you will come out on the other side with something. If you have that original vision or idea of what you want something to be, it’s to not lose sight of that, in all the mud of what you go through.
I just think I need to remind myself that, with any documentary, anyone that makes a doc, I think, talks about this. It’s not an easy thing, it’s not particularly glamorous, quite frustrating and hard. I think I just learned to maybe remember that a little bit more, and focus on the end goal, and not the current mud that you’re in.
I don’t personally feel like there’s a difference between on-camera David and off-camera David, I feel they’re one and the same. Of course, you have an interviewer voice, or an interviewer personality or stance or whatever, but I would argue that in Mister Organ, you are more emotionally vulnerable than in any of the other projects that you’ve been involved in. What was that like for you? Were you at all apprehensive to be that emotionally vulnerable and open on camera or were you in such a state that you don’t even think about the fact that you’re making a documentary?
No, it’s a really good question. Believe it or not, I’m not a big fan of being on camera. I don’t love it. I would love to be making things where I’m directing, and I’m not in it. It just happens that I get sucked into certain stories, so it helps with storytelling. And, also, it’s a really great narrative device. If you are the one telling the story, it’s a really helpful way to tell that story.
But yeah, as far as being emotionally vulnerable, when it’s happening, I mean, I have a really close relationship with my DP, Dom Fryer, and Danny Watts, who was doing sound on this film. It would just be the three of us most of the time. I almost — I’d forget they’re there, and I’d direct certain scenes, but then, when I’m in them, we would discuss what was going to happen. Then I would just fully trust what Dom was going to capture, and forget they were there.
So when that emotional stuff happened at the moment, it was fine, it was just happening, and it was almost like they weren’t in the room. It becomes difficult when you’re in the edit, and you’re in a different mind space, and you’re watching all these scenes of yourself. I think it becomes hard there, but I think there was no choice but to put it in the film. I mean, part of what this turned into, it was meant to be a film about me investigating his other victims, but then, I turned into one of his victims, and so I couldn’t just leave that out. That was just a process to go through. Didn’t love it, didn’t love it, but I’m happy with where we landed.
A little bit earlier, you brought up Dark Tourist. I was a big fan of your work on Dark Tourist, and I know some people were like, “Oh, let’s bring it back, let’s try and revive it.” I’m one of those people who wanted to get more of that. Is that a project that is so far in your rearview now, that it’s, “Okay, it’s over and done with, and I’m just looking for new things to explore,” or is there a chance that if Netflix unloads the rights or allows you to do with it what you want, could we ever see some version of that show come back?
Thanks for being into it. I mean, that was such a fun thing to make, and I made it with all my friends. Netflix, we pitched it to them, and they took it very quickly, off the back of Tickled, and I just made it with my friends in New Zealand. They were very hands-off. In the right circumstances, we’ve got a whole Season 2 mapped out, and that could happen.
At the same time, it’s not a burning desire in my heart to make it. I just follow whatever is currently in front of me, that I find drawn into. And right now, literally right now, I’m just looking for that new thing. So yeah, if Netflix writes those big checks, if they get those streaming numbers up, then definitely wouldn’t say no, or we might take it somewhere else.
But yeah, I don’t want to be doing Dark Tourist for 10 seasons. I feel very happy doing the season of the show that I feel really happy with, and then making some other weird films, or another weird series, or not making any series, just working on Webworm, or a podcast or something. I’m not driven in that way. It’s more just waiting for the story to appear, and then, figuring out what that thing could be.
Well, David, I really appreciate you taking the time to chat. I’m a big fan of the projects that you’ve done and I was taken totally by surprise with how self-reflective Mister Organ was, coming off of Tickled, which felt so narratively driven, following these threads of these people.
Thanks, man. Thank you.
That’s what I was expecting. So for this to be so much more existential and ambiguous, yet so much more personal, I was really surprised and delighted.
Ah, thank you. Because I probably, I don’t know, I’d like to take credit for it. I think I probably wanted to set out to make another Tickled, but it just didn’t work out that way. I feel super proud that it is an entirely different beast, so thanks for saying that.
Also, I think, in ways, it’s funnier than … I think it’s bleaker than Tickled was, but I also think some of the funny bits in there, I keep forgetting to say this, I think it is really f-cking funny at times, as well. There’s some really funny New Zealand-isms in there, that I hope Americans get, and I like that aspect to it, as well.
If I wasn’t out of time, I was curious about the whole New Zealand versus — now you live in L.A., the differences in the communities.
Oh, so different.
But I do think there’s universality to the narcissism and the gaslighting and all that stuff.
Oh, there is, yeah. I mean, the one thing I would say, is that in the edit for a lot of this, Trump was President through a lot of it, and I’ve talked about this a bit before. But yeah, there’s definitely elements of Trump in Michael Organ. We’re living in the perfect age where someone can just take their own version of reality and just run with it, and it works. When I was growing up as a kid, that’s not really how the world worked.
But we’re living in a time where you can invent your own reality, you can live it out, and it works fine. And I think that’s definitely, certainly in the West, is incredibly universal.
Well, David, thank you again, really appreciate it. Big fan of your stuff.
It’s nice to meet another Isis fan. Not the terrorist organization, but the band.
Well, I’m seeing Sumac next week, so if I cross paths with Aaron, we’ll talk Mister Organ.
Yeah, f-cking A. And to be clear, I always get the Aarons confused. I know the drummer, Aaron Harris. Not Aaron Turner, the bearded f-cking maniac.
Never mind, I will not bring Mister Organ up … I’m glad you cleared that up.
It’d be awkward. “Hey, David is harping on about how he knows you,” and you meet him, and he’s like, “Never heard of the guy.” You’re like, “That f-cking liar.”
The family tree of the Old Man Gloom, Isis, Converge, all that stuff. I can’t ever keep it straight.
Oh, Old Man Gloom, also … Oh, my God. Huge fan. Anyway, I’ll let you go. Thank you for talking to me.
Mister Organ opens in New York and Los Angeles on October 6th and opens wide on October 13th.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. You can contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter.
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Image courtesy of Universal Pictures
