[Firewire]

I just started watching this, it's a three-part true crime documentary series based around the killings of Luka Magnotta.

I don't want to say too much in case people aren't familiar with it (I know it's true crime but maybe some want to go in blind).

Essentially it has interviews with online vigilantes who came together after a video of a man killing two cats appeared online in 2010. They formed a group to try and discover the man's identity but as they get closer to him it gets more and more disturbing.

Youtube video

[Firewire]

I've only watched episode 1 so far but it's incredibly well-made.

[Amy Jade]

Originally Posted by Firewire

I've only watched episode 1 so far but it's incredibly well-made.

Wait till you meet his mother...

[Shaun]

I was gonna perch this. Does it show anything graphic though?

[Amy Jade]

Originally Posted by Shaun

I was gonna perch this. Does it show anything graphic though?

No nothing. They tell you what happens and you hear noises (but not cries of pain of any animals) but it is not shown.

[Jessica.]

Oh my god, I just finished it. Horrific. The mother is insane too.

RIP Jun Lin

[Ammi]

...I watched this...I hadn’t known about the story, about his existence...why did people keep watching his vids, I don’t understand...it felt like he had his ‘audience’...and if he hadn’t, would he still have done it..?...it’s all so horrendous, it was hard to process...Jun Lin and his poor, poor family......

[Ammi]

...I just don’t understand why people watched...

[Jessica.]

I think they watched because it was so shocking, people loved being shocked by things back then. I watched things in 2010 that I regret seeing too. I was 17 and everyone else was doing it. It was just "the thing" at the time. You start off seeing something strange or weird, then someone sends you something worse and then it escalates until you're watching videos like that. I never went that far, I didn't watch anything involving gore/death but I know people who did and it really affected them.

[Shaun]

Just watched the first episode and I literally felt a shiver run down my spine when the clip was uploaded of him walking through Dianna's workplace (not sure how you spell her name, but the iconic queen with the Bowie stripe on a pug's face tattoo).

[Jessica.]

Originally Posted by Shaun

Just watched the first episode and I literally felt a shiver run down my spine when the clip was uploaded of him walking through Dianna's workplace (not sure how you spell her name, but the iconic queen with the Bowie stripe on a pug's face tattoo).

That part was insane!

[Ammi]

...but as the group started to spiral with thousands and thousands of members...why did they never contact the police..?...the police would have had access to methods that they didn’t have...the police may not have acted but wasn’t it worth a try...?...it’s like they became addicted to the ‘game’ of it...(..apart from the obvious...)...there was so much about this that I found disturbing...

[Morgan.]

Originally Posted by Ammi

...but as the group started to spiral with thousands and thousands of members...why did they never contact the police..?...the police would have had access to methods that they didn’t have...the police may not have acted but wasn’t it worth a try...?...it’s like they became addicted to the ‘game’ of it...(..apart from the obvious...)...there was so much about this that I found disturbing...

I think they had contacted the police but they didn’t listen. At the end, when he killed someone, the interviewees said ‘you should’ve listened’, directed at the police.

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Morgan.

I think they had contacted the police but they didn’t listen. At the end, when he killed someone, the interviewees said ‘you should’ve listened’, directed at the police.

...ahhhh, I must have missed that in the beginning, that they had contacted the police...I found so much about this that was terrifying...like when the group had targeted the wrong person..and he then took his own life.....

[Headie]

I'm only near the end of the first episode but this Luca Magnotta thing seriously reminds me of that BradTheLadLong creep that would create fake accounts to get himself in tv lineup rumours...

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Hayden

I'm only near the end of the first episode but this Luca Magnotta thing seriously reminds me of that BradTheLadLong creep that would create fake accounts to get himself in tv lineup rumours...

...I actually don’t know anything about Bradtheladlong...but I am aware of the name from here...

[LaLaLand]

Does this actually show the video of him and the cats? Because I really want to watch this but if that's shown I can't. It'll upset me.

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by LaLaLand

Does this actually show the video of him and the cats? Because I really want to watch this but if that's shown I can't. It'll upset me.

...no, it doesn’t show much of the actual vids, LaLa...I don’t know if you’ll find it upsetting, it’s upset me a lot but that’s probably just me...

[Morgan.]

Originally Posted by LaLaLand

Does this actually show the video of him and the cats? Because I really want to watch this but if that's shown I can't. It'll upset me.

They show parts of the video and sound but they don’t actually air the killings. They show him petting the cats etc but no violence. And they show the cats corpses once but briefly.

[LeatherTrumpet]

cant wait to watch this

[Babayaro.]

watched ep1 and ****ing hell

Truly terrifying but so, so well made.

[Babayaro.]

On to episode 2!

[Shaun]

the ending having a go at people for watching. You can't make a massive Netflix programme about something and then absolve yourself of your perceived immorality about the whole project, love.

I knew nothing about the case prior to watching and it's pretty shocking in all honesty. Sad, frightening, creepy and completely unusual.

I appreciate the message of the documentary (and the ending) in some respect: social media allowing a platform for the most depraved content to be broadcast to an audience, the idea of someone like Magnotta being 'fed' attention and it fueling his desires... but I think it was a little glib to frame it so "and YOU'RE TO BLAME, TOO" at the end since... I mean... look at the platform you're using, dears. I don't see a correlation between one serial killer obsessed with films, modeling and his own fan club and "social media caused it", because there've been many other cults in the past that allowed for a killer to feel like they got attention (the Manson cult, the Zodiac killer, etc - the latter in particular was always going to toy with the police and anyone investigating, because it was a game to that perpetrator(s). This "are we to blame?" rhetoric at the end seems a little... self-aggrandizing, like... we want to make a documentary about a famous criminal, but also want to make it seem like we have a point to make.

I feel they could've gone at it from the angle of criticising the presence of sites like that "gore" website where the videos of his crimes were hosted, or Liveleak, or other such sites, since... it's a far more obvious link between criminal behaviour and sharing violent, disgusting images and content with the world. But this was pretty much glossed over... perhaps because those involved in hunting Magnotta down were involved with such sites?

[Ammi]

...there was quite a bit that was glossed over, I thought...like the police involvement...it was only fleetingly mentioned that the police had been informed...so it felt a little like a ‘game’...but they had informed the police, jurisdiction was obviously an issue...I felt a little that when the vid of Jun Lin was posted...yes, there was shock and terror etc...but also a little element of...’I told them, I TOLD THEM and LOOK...’...which was taking a more centre stage to a human being brutally killed ...

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Ammi

...there was quite a bit that was glossed over, I thought...like the police involvement...it was only fleetingly mentioned that the police had been informed...so it felt a little like a ‘game’...but they had informed the police, jurisdiction was obviously an issue...I felt a little that when the vid of Jun Lin was posted...yes, there was shock and terror etc...but also a little element of...’I told them, I TOLD THEM and LOOK...’...which was taking a more centre stage to a human being brutally killed ...

Apparently their contact with the police was "an email" (to some detective who was on vacation at the time). I would like to think that if I had tracked someone down who was killing animals and uploading it to the internet, I, or one of the people in that group, would've been a little more persistent than "one email".

The more I think about it I feel the documentary's been made to absolve the group of their feelings of guilt. Because let's face it: Magnotta's arrest was done with pretty much no involvement from them. He wasn't even found guilty of the cat/dog crimes. He left behind a ridiculous crime scene and every piece of incriminating evidence he could've done (perhaps because he wanted, or a part of his mind wanted, to be caught), was using his own name abroad in booking hotels... he would've been caught without this group's work. And the more I consider this, the more I find myself appalled by the documentary's tone; that it was some supposed vigilante Facebook group that "knew what he was going to do" but... did next to nothing in actually stopping him. Because it's easier to blame the police and say they weren't taken seriously.

And the persistent sense of gratification they get from making connections to his online presence and what certain aspects of the crime involved (the names of his aliases, the films he was inspired by, the tracking down of specific streetlights) just smacks of the popcorn-investigation the documentary so dismissively criticises.