Director Olivia Kuan's 'Catfish Killer' dresses its cautionary message in the sleek skin of a teen thriller, exploring how easily intimacy and danger blur online. It's marketed as horror, and it does have some elements of horror, but in truth it plays more like a psychological crime thriller: a story of manipulation, trust, and the invisible predators behind glowing screens.
Hannah (Morgan Taylor Campbell) is living her ideal final school year, aiming for a Stanford scholarship, when a chatroom romance turns sinister. The plot follows familiar beats but resonates whenever it lingers on Hannah's growing unease. The strongest horror here isn't blood or violence, it's the creeping realisation that identity itself is porous.
Kuan frames Hannah repeatedly through reflections and half-lit screens, hinting at the film's deeper concern with self-image. A background username ("StanfordDreamer98") quietly foreshadows her downfall, and a final flicker of an unread message leaves the threat unresolved, a neat if understated ending touch.
Yet, for all its thematic potential, 'Catfish Killer' struggles with pacing and depth. Some scenes linger too long on routine teenage chatter, dulling the suspense that the premise promises. The performances are earnest, the direction competent, but the film never quite escapes its made-for-TV limitations. And I think that the plot twist at the end did not work out as well as other scenarios could have.
Still, as a psychological cautionary tale, it lands. Beneath its Lifetime-Film veneer lies a small but genuine anxiety about how technology distorts connection.
