Don’t F**k With Cats director Mark Lewis has defended his decision to use stills from the video of Jun Lin’s murder in the series.
The bizarre three-part programme follows the cat-loving internet sleuths who successfully hunted down killer Luka Magnotta after he posted a number of videos of him cruelly killing cats.
As the story progresses, the show reveals how Magnotta went on to brutally murder Chinese student Jun Lin, known to his friends as Justin, in a twisted homage to Luka’s favourite film, Basic Instinct.
Since its release, Lewis has come under fire for using stills of the homemade horror movie in the programme.
However, the director has defended his decision, telling The Telegraph:
We had to play the opening frames so viewers could see the connection to Basic Instinct. And we never show any of the suffering.
Lewis went on to defend the choice to show Deanna Thompson, or as she’s known on social media, Baudi Moovan, the full clip of Magnotta killing the cats, despite the fact the video is never known to the audience.
He said:
It was necessary to show to people the power that video had. To galvanise 15,000 people in this hunt for the abuser. To explain the effect that the video had on people.
Magotta and Jun originally met through Craigslist, before callous killer Luka strapped his victim to a bed, killed and dismembered him and sent his body parts to Canadian political headquarters. Jun’s head was found in Montreal’s Angrignon Park.
A horrifying video titled ‘1 Lunatic, 1 Ice Pick’ emerged online, prompting a worldwide manhunt to find Magnotta. He was eventually found searching the web for stories about himself in an internet café in Berlin.
Since the docuseries’ release, Jun’s best friend, Benjamin Xu, has said he’s disappointed his friend will now be remembered for that video and a connection to cats he never asked for.
Speaking at the end of the series, Xu said:
The really sad thing is, everybody is talking about Luka Magnotta and nobody has ever remembered Jun.
A child reportedly left school crying and vomiting after seeing the clips as part of the docuseries, after it was shown by a teacher.
The student, who attends Elgin Park School in Surrey, British Columbia, was left ‘shocked’ and ‘horrified’ at the graphic nature of the documentary.
In possibly the most bizarre twist of all, after being sentenced to life behind bars, Magnotta reportedly married fellow inmate Anthony Jolin – who is also a convicted killer – in 2017.
The documentary touched on the fact Luka’s crimes were primarily down to the fact he was desperate for notoriety, which he has essentially achieved in the form of the Netflix series.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.