Hunting a Killer in “Don’t F With Cats”

Committing animal abuse and murdering someone for the attention of people on the internet sounds completely bizarre and horrendous, but that is precisely the subject of the chilling Netflix series Don’t F*** With Cats.

Based on a string of true events, the three part docuseries, directed by Mark Lewis, highlights the chase toward the infamous killer, Luka Magnotta. Born in 1982 and originally named Eric Kirk Newman, Magnotta was born into an abusive household and was bullied while attending school.

He began his journey as an unsuccessful actor and resorted to working as a stripper, escort, and pornographic film star. While his acting career plummeted, his thirst for attention only grew further.

The docuseries unpacks Magnotta’s posting of several videos of himself suffocating, drowning, and abusing kittens. As these videos began to trend, enraged viewers formed a group to find out who the mysterious boy was. The Facebook group sprung into action and were mailed information of Magnotta’s identity and whereabouts. The hints were sent on burner accounts, and, in the end, it was a game of cat and mouse led by Magnotta.

Don’t F*** With Cats follows the journey of a Facebook group tracking down Luka Magnotta and how his acts of cruelty towards animals ultimately ends up with a murder, a cruel dismembering of the body, and the mailing of its parts to the headquarters of Canada’s Conservative and Liberal Parties and to two elementary schools.

Considering I am binge watching these three episodes at 11:00 pm on a Tuesday night, this docuseries is extremely chilling and interesting. Luka Magnotta, similar to many famous killers, is narcissistic as many found him to be handsome. As I continued to watch the short series, I became invested in the reasoning behind the animal cruelty and murder, and while Magnotta did suffer from schizophrenia as a teenager, many believe he started this “chase” to feel high on all the online attention. He made it seem like he planned all of the events, even making the events correlate with his favorite movie so he could feel like he was the main character.

Unlike many other movies or shows about serial killers and psychopaths, Don’t F*** With Cats involves no acting—just people who were involved telling a story of what happened. Personally, the setup of the series made it seem so much more frightening although other movies and shows are actors acting based on true events in the docuseries.

This docuseries perfectly encapsulates the risks of meeting people on the internet and show how powerful the internet can truly be. I’m sure, after watching, people will learn the same lesson—don’t f*** with cats because a group of Facebookers will find you.