This film continues to haunt me long after I watched it.
“Unknown Number: The High School Catfish,” is a thriller that’s set up a lot like a murder mystery. Someone is sending disparaging, threatening and bullying messages to teenagers – and the violent themes and profanity in the texts continues to escalate over a period of about a year and half.
‘Unknown Number: The High School Catfish’ (IMDb)
What’s even more frightening is that this is a documentary, not a feature film. The people involved are the real-life victims and perpetrator (yes, you will find out who it is by the end of the movie.)
The reason this film, which is set in a small Michigan town, has earned so much buzz is because it’s so highly relatable: What would you do if you began to receive threatening texts – horrible texts that indicated the person sending them knows you very well?
The cyber assaults begin with Lauryn and Owen, girlfriend and boyfriend, who are astonished and scared after they begin to receive vicious texts, sometimes dozens in one day, from someone warning Lauryn that Owen doesn’t really care for her. The intent of the texts seems to be to engineer a breakup between the two
This happens, but the stalker continues the relentless barrage of texts, and they now include Owen’s new girlfriend.
Eventually, the school principal becomes involved, and so do the local police. Finally the FBI is called in to assist, and the investigators do indeed crack the case.
This is one of the most interesting documentaries I’ve seen this year. All throughout the proceedings, I kept asking myself “Who would want to do this to these kids? To what end?” A great documentary – which this is – involves the voices and perspectives of everyone involved in the story. That makes the big reveal all the more unsettling.
You may shudder at the sound of text messages for a while after you’ve seen this grim true story.
4 stars
Running time: 94 minutes.
Streaming on Netflix.
Rated: TV-MA, with foul language, graphic sexual talk and threats in the texts and dialogue.
Watch the trailer here.
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