If there’s anything I’ve learned from watching this documentary, it’s that one: the Internet does not f**k around when it comes to animals, and two: once you put yourself on the Internet, people can find out so much about you.
The new Netflix limited-series documentary Don’t F**k With Cats, touches upon the dangers of the Internet and how consumed people can become in it. It tells the story of how a group of amateur online “sleuths” manages to track down a killer from the comfort of their computers. The story is unlike anything I have watched before and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good true crime show.
The series is split into three episodes, each around an hour long. The episodes take you along the journey with the people that originally came across the gruesome videos of cats being killed on camera (thus the title) and how their anger at the injustice empowered them to try and track this man down. We are first introduced to Baudi Moovan (Deanna Thompson) and John Green, who recounted the steps that led to the demise of Canada’s worst killers, Luka Magnotta. Before he was a killer, Luka uploaded a series of animal abuse videos having to do with cats that is extremely difficult to watch. These videos sparked outrage across the world for people on Facebook and Deanna and John helped to put together a Facebook group of people determined to track them down. For months, they studied frame by frame of the video and somehow managed to identify the person in the video to be Luka. They tried to warn the police that Luka could be escalating, but they ignored their pleas. In 2012, Luka did exactly what they had feared, murdering Chinese student Jun Lin. The completely f*cked up part of it was that he videotaped Lin’s last moments as he stabbed him with an ice pick multiple times.
The series takes you on a complete rollercoaster of an experience, as viewers follow the steps Luka took and try to understand his thought process. After committing the murder in Montreal, he fled to Europe, where he was able to avoid capture for many months. The craziest thing of all of this though was the fact that Luka wanted to be chased. For most of his life, he sought fame and recognition, as he was extremely narcissistic and failed in his modeling career. The steps that Luka was willing to take to boost his ego, creating fan accounts for himself and eventually going down this dark path, is absolutely insane and is part of what fascinates many people with this documentary. The only complaint I had with the series was that there was not much light shined on his one victim, Jun Lin, who had his life ripped away from him to soon. I believe he deserved more recognition, and take away the limelight from Luka and his ego.
All in all, Don’t F**k With Cats is an intriguing and suspenseful documentary series that will draw you in right from the beginning. If you have access to Netflix (or can steal your friend’s login as I do), I highly recommend you give it a watch.
