Unknown Number: The High School Catfish

'Unknown Number: The High School Catfish' is a wild ride from start to finish. Skye Borgman has a knack for unravelling these twisted real-life stories in a way that keeps you glued to the screen, and this one is no exception. What starts out as your typical small-town teenage drama quickly spirals into something far darker, more disturbing, and honestly, pretty unbelievable.

The most shocking part isn't just the relentless harassment, but the psychology behind it all. It's crazy what mental illness does to people, especially when it goes unchecked - and watching this unfold, you can't help but feel that she never truly grasped the gravity of what she did. Instead, what comes across is an almost chilling level of detachment, the behaviour of an absolute narcissist who couldn't (or wouldn't) comprehend the damage caused.

As a documentary, it's tight, pacey, and completely bingeable - the kind of thing you finish and immediately want to discuss with someone. But it also left me thinking how many stories like this never see the light of day. Personally, I wish Netflix would give the same treatment to the Amanda Todd case - a tragedy that deserves a thorough, sensitive documentary.

If you're into true crime that blends high school drama with the sinister realities of catfishing and cyberbullying, this one is absolutely worth your time.

This film started off great. The delivery with the cinematography and graphics keeps you wanting more and awake. Then about midway through the film, after a lot of buildup, the viewer gets sick of waiting for a conclusion. Once the cat is out of the bag there is way too much emphasis on the emotions of the abuser, not the victim. The abuser is not at all looked at in any depth. Instead, they get to say their piece repeatedly while everyone else in the film is sidestepped. Considering what a horrible person the abuser is, they got way too much sympathy from the director. It made me sick. I ended up not liking the movie about 80 percent of the way through. There was way too much emphasis on giving the psychopath a break. In the end, I still give it a 6.7. Almost an average film.

A very shocking documentary.

I guessed the perpetrator within 5 mins of watching this documentary. Surely the perpetrator has a mental illness but I felt for the victims and the victims innocent friends, family, relatives. Absolutely no sympathy or understanding for the perpetrator. The biggest shock was the content of the messages to the victim. The BS coming from the perpetrator about people do make mistakes in their lives is a dumb excuse of their own culpability. I also think the perpetrator lied about not sending the original messages around Halloween to the victim. It's unbelievable, but no amount of psychology is gonna excuse this perpetrators behaviour, and the perpetrators messages could have caused the victim to commit harm to themselves. Using excuses of trauma of your own childhood, irrelevant of how bad or serious, as reasons for your behaviour towards another person is inexcusable, even if your intentions are ultimately good.

Bullying used to be face to face and confrontational, but with technology and social media, bullying is worse and very destructive. Telecoms providers need to do more, social media companies need to do a lot more. It's frustrating because it is possible but their greed for user data and revenue appears to be more important than the safety of vulnerable people.

There is plenty of technology available that can be used to clone the victims phones, trace the recieving messages and use the cell phone provider to monitor incoming/outgoing calls and messages to/from the unknown number. Even if the perpetrator is using apps to generate random numbers or disguise their number, including IP Addresses.

I'm not sure why this took over a year to resolve.

The twist at the end was quite something. The person concerned should never be allowed near another in her lifetime, so wicked and evil are their deeds.

The only problem I had was the 'first messages'. We all know who started this and yet the law and the documentary makers let her slide off the hook when it could have been proven beyond all doubt.

Well worth a watch though.

Unknown Number unfolds with a pacing that feels carefully measured: each revelation arrives at just the right time, keeping the audience engaged without slipping into sensationalism or dragging its feet. The story's structure is one of the documentary's strongest achievements, sustaining tension while steadily deepening the mystery.

Yet the film stumbles in key areas. Most notably, it gives the perpetrator far too much space, allowing their voice to dominate without sufficient critical framing. This imbalance is compounded by the absence of a deeper psychological perspective, which could have provided crucial context for understanding the behavior and its broader implications. Instead, viewers are left with raw testimony that at times feels more like a platform than an examination.

By downplaying analysis in favor of dramatic storytelling, Unknown Number risks prioritizing shock value over insight. While it succeeds in keeping audiences hooked, its reluctance to interrogate the subject matter leaves the narrative feeling incomplete.

The result is a documentary that is compelling in rhythm and atmosphere, but ultimately weaker in responsibility and depth. Above all, it is difficult not to feel deep sympathy for all those affected by the events, people whose experiences deserved a more thoughtful and nuanced exploration than the film delivers.