[WARNING: Spoilers for Netflix’s “Don’t F**k With Cats”]
On December 18, when most Americans were preparing to spend the joyful Christmas holiday with family and friends, Netflix dropped one of the most disturbing true crime docuseries in quite some time.
“Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer” is a three-part docuseries dealing with a cat and mouse game that played out between a group of internet sleuths and a deranged man who uploaded a video of himself killing two kittens in a vacuum bag.
Well, that’s how it started.
From the very beginning, an electric horror pulses through the veins of “Don’t F**k With Cats.”
A mystery man uploading an anonymous video to the internet in which he sweetly pets two kittens before placing them into a sealed vacuum bag and suctioning the air out until the kittens have died is the starting gun to this docuseries that explores evil, viral infamy, and complicity.
Shortly after the video goes viral, a small cadre of internet “nerds” decide to find the man responsible for the sickening footage – but the task is more difficult than they imagined.
Just when they feel like giving up, clues, seemingly from the killer himself, begin to arrive in the form of Facebook notifications. Has the kitten killer infiltrated their vigilante Facebook group? Has he been watching them toil away this entire time? The cat might have had the the mouse by the tail all along.
But this is only the beginning. Two more videos have been posted – one in which a kitten is fed to a python, and another in which a kitten is tied to a broomstick and drowned in a bathtub.
As if these sickening videos weren’t enough, the killer ups the ante by sending the group a photo of himself lounging while holding a kitten. The killer has blurred his own face in the image, but just enough to be maddening to his seekers.
Tips come flooding in about the identity of the mysterious kitten killer, but the alleged sicko is difficult to track down as he travels the world. The sleuths now know who the killer is, but ache as they are able to accomplish nothing material.
The game takes an even more heinous turn (if that’s possible) when the killer uploads a new video of himself stabbing a human to death with what appears to be an ice pick. The internet sleuths know who perpetrated this crime, but their pleas for officials to listen seemingly fall on deaf ears.
Now that the kitten killer has tuned into a murderer, officials begin investigating. The twists and turns come fast and furious in the final episode, and are so unbelievable and unthinkable, one might be forgiven for wondering if this docuseries is scripted.
In the end, the internet sleuths are left to wonder if they helped advance the narrative of this vile, fame-seeking killer; if they fed the animal-slaughtering beast who would eventually graduate to murder. It’s a question that cannot be fully answered.
Altogether thrilling and sickening, pulse-pounding and horrifying, “Don;t F**k With Cats” is a docuseries for the ages. If you’re fascinated by true crime tales, this is a must-watch.
“Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer” is available to stream right now on Netflix.