Unknown Number: High School Catfish Review
Director: Skye Borgman
Date Created: 2025-08-30 02:19
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Unknown Number: High School Catfish Review: In a 94-minute documentary by Skye Borgman, we get to see a vicious real-life case that occurred in Beal City, Michigan. The film is based on high school senior Lauryn Licari and her boyfriend, Owen McKenny, who became the target of relentless cyberbullying that would ultimately ruin their lives. Where it begins like it would be a typical case of harassment between teenagers, it suddenly becomes one of the most chilling betrayals that I have ever witnessed in a documentary.
Unknown Number: High School Catfish Review
The Unknown Number: High School Catfish documentary starts out by walking us through the normal introduction of Lauryn and Owen as typical small-town teenagers. They played sports, received the love of their families, and basked in the kind of innocent teenage romance that causes other people to smile. Their mothers and fathers supported them, their school was close, and for a time, it was all smooth sailing.
Then the texts began. Anonymous phone numbers added them to group chats and sent cruel, hateful texts to Lauryn. It was at first a joke or jealousy among peers. Some of the texts defamed her relationship, some profanely insulted her body, and some, far worse, tried to make her hurt herself. I, as an audience watching, were as mystified as were the families. Why would some person pursue those children so obsessively? Why continue to send messages after blocking phone numbers? It was maddening to us viewers; to Lauryn, it would have been agonising.
It was the middle of the film Unknown Number: High School Catfish that actually got me irritated. The texts weren’t bullied, clichéd—it was personal, graphic, and it was as if someone in Lauryn’s life knew every aspect of her universe. She would go out for a game and then receive texts making fun of her gaming. She would get into a fight at school, and there would be texts about it in her hand almost immediately.
Whenever the phone rang in the documentary, I tensed up, downright angry on her behalf. To be 13 or 14 years old and made to read words that aim to crush your spirit day after day. To watch Lauryn lose interest in basketball and slowly unravel was painful for me. No child should have to be humiliated like that in this cold, calculating way.
I also pitied Owen. He wanted to be a good boyfriend, but got entangled in something so much deeper than high school drama. Even families suspected classmates, and at one very infuriating time, another innocent girl was erroneously considered to be planning the harassment.
I was under the impression when I saw it that the bully was a teenager—a scorned friend, a female competing for Owen’s attention. This was the theory that would later be proven true. But the investigation dragged on for months and uncovered no solid leads. Not even the local sheriff and school officials could find and arrest the bully.
When the FBI got involved and later tracked out the texts, I was in no condition for the truth. The bully wasn’t some school friend, wasn’t some stranger, but her own mother, Kendra Licari. That was a chilling bit of news. My indignation, which had originally been aimed at some callous teenager, switched into something deeper. A mother actively writing hundreds of vile texts to her own daughter, actually inciting her into suicide—it’s one of the most horrifying acts of treachery that I’ve ever witnessed in a documentary.
The documentary Unknown Number: High School Catfish features Kendra’s confession, but her reasons are weak and unconvincing. Some speculate insanity, some possession or jealousy, but nothing was an adequate explanation. And that was what enraged me further—there was no adequate reason, no excuse, only hardness masquerading as love.
The greatest strength of Netflix’s Unknown Number: High School Catfish is that it portrays the gradual breakdown of trust so aptly. You initially think, as everybody else thinks, that the perp must be a student. The more it goes along, the more tense it gets. By the time it finally gets revealed, it’s heartbreaking because the deception is so intimate.
I was also relieved that there was room in the movie for Lauryn. Despite all of it, she has this amazing strength, going out and insisting that she wanted to forgive her mom. To me, that was the greatest—not the detective story, not the twist, but a teenager who didn’t want to be consumed by hate.
The thing that left me frustrated was that there was no good answer or motive. I was always in need of a good reason for why Kendra behaved in this manner, and never did anyone seem to arrive. The documentary throws out theories, and yet no solutions are ever given. That’s one way that it was realistic—real life is often messy, open-ended motivations. That’s also a way in which it left me feeling uncomfortable, in need of answers that possibly will not arrive.
Unknown Number High School Catfish Review: Summing Up
The High School Catfish was the most shocking Netflix true-crime documentary that I have ever watched. This isn’t a violent documentary, and this isn’t gore, and yet I was disgusted and nauseated by it more than some of the more gruesome documentaries. Because at its core, this isn’t a story of a criminal or stranger—it’s a story of family betrayal. I also couldn’t help but be immensely sympathetic towards Owen and Lauryn and was sickened by Kendra’s actions. The film isn’t perfect—some of the scenes felt staged, and not knowing was maddening—but the emotional impact of the film makes it unforgettable.
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