Content warning: gore, animal abuse, murder

Don’t F With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer is a three-part documentary series that delivers exactly what the title says. A group of people who only know each other through Facebook find a disturbing video of an anonymous man murdering two kittens. They begin working together to identify the man to expose him and bring him to justice. The murderer responds by toying with them, setting up fake clues and sock puppet accounts to throw them off his track before uploading more videos. The increasing number of references to real life serial killers and obsession with fame lead the group to realize that the murderer is gearing up to switch to human victims.

Director Mark Lewis crafts an excellent true crime documentary out of extremely upsetting circumstances. The title is a reference to what Deanna Thomas (one of the amateurs investigating the crime) explains as one of the biggest rules of the Internet. You can get away with a lot of bad things online, but the one crime that will bind total strangers together is messing with cats. None of the murder videos are shown completely, though you see enough clips before and after the crime to know exactly what happened.

Deanna Thomas is the main narrator of the series and a large part of why the concept works. She represents a large portion of internet users in a clear way: she uses a pseudonym online. Deanna Thomas is a data analyst for Las Vegas casinos; Baudi Moovan is someone looking to make friends and experience new things online. Baudi is an extension of Deanna because she is Deanna. However, it is Baudi Moovan who leads the Facebook groups investigating the crimes. The members of the group and the people she contacts for information know her as Baudi, so Baudi is real to them. Deanna as Baudi is one of the first people to find the original cat video and starts the group where people work together to identify the murderer.

Thomas is not the only person investigating the videos featured in the documentary (John Green is the other group founder, various police detectives and agents also share their roles in the official investigation). She is, however, the voice of the documentary. Her journey is used to frame an impressive amount of amateur police work in not only identifying the killer but pinpointing his exact location and decoding the clues he leaves in videos, photos, and random internet postings. Deanna Thomas is also the moral compass of the series, making her concerns about the role of the Facebook group in the murderer’s actions clear every step of the way.

The series is one of the strongest true crime documentaries I’ve seen in years. There will surely be a narrative film adaptation of this story to come in the future. It’s a true crime murder story about a person obsessed with film and serial killers trying to gain fame by any means necessary. It’s a story about justice delayed because the people doing the real investigative work for years are not professionals. I have not gotten this emotionally invested in a documentary in a long time, fighting the urge to scream at the film like Brenda in Scary Movie when things go wrong.

It’s also a scathing commentary on the true crime genre as popcorn entertainment. This is not a new trend (In Cold Blood made Truman Capote a household name in 1966), but it is very viable right now. Series like Making a Murderer, The Keepers, and even Tiger King are tentpole events in pop culture. People get outraged enough to fight for justice if they believe none was served, or become obsessed enough to turn true crime into fodder for memes. These real events are treated with the same fan fervor as touchstone fictional entertainment like The Sopranos or Game of Thrones.

The last few minutes of Don’t F With Cats really call us all out. Deanna Thomas hints at her feelings about her role in the investigation throughout the documentary, but she’s finally given the time to speak an uninterrupted monologue about fame, infamy, and complicity with narcissistic and sociopathic behavior in the media. This is the unspoken theme of the documentary, rung out clear as a bell as the final sequence of the series. Giving a convicted criminal attention because we find their story entertaining feeds into a media machine that can encourage other people to do the same.

I will not lie. The subject matter of this documentary is difficult to sit through. Even the people who lived through and led the investigation struggle when asked to review footage or share details of the crimes committed. You do not need to see the violence itself when so many people fighting for justice are still hurting years later. Don’t F With Cats is incredibly well edited and measured in its approach, leading you through the timeline of the actual investigation, including all the setbacks and misdirection along the way. Fans of the true crime genre will not be disappointed unless they’re really not willing to have their interest in true crime questioned.

Don’t F With Cats is currently streaming on Netflix.

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