Unknown Number: The High School Catfish Movie Review (2025)

An unhinged documentary about cyber-bullying in a small-town high school, Unknown Number: The High School Catfish has a truly unbelievable story to tell.

When this film popped up on Netflix a few weeks ago, I added it to my watchlist and half forgot about it. I do that with a lot of films and get around to seeing them eventually, but then my son texted me. He watched it yesterday and I had to watch it soon so that we could debrief and be taken aback together. Well, I’ll tell you – you’re going to need to compare notes as well after this one.

Unknown Number: The High School Catfish centers around several local teenagers, their parents, the school principal, and the local police in Beal City, Michigan. When Lauryn, begins to receive lewd and harassing texts about her relationship with her boyfriend, Owen, it takes approximately two years of twists and turns to solve the crime.

Lauryn was 13 years old when she began receiving these texts. Sometimes getting dozens per day, they were often heavily sexual in nature and later told her that she should harm herself. Students were interviewed, cameras were installed in the school, and the principal and police looked into it, but the cyber-bullying continued to get worse. And what’s more, it often seemed like the person was where Lauryn was, stalking her.

I am going to be very careful not to say too much about the specifics of this case because much of the documentary is focused on following the trail and, eventually, finding the culprit, but what I will say is that it left a huge impression on me as a mother.

I spent a lot of this film considering what I would do differently if this was happening to my child. Now, it wasn’t happening to my child, thank goodness, so I have the benefit of being able to separate myself, but in addition to wanting to break Lauryn, Owen, and some of their friends and parents free from this horror, it completely reached me and and all of the scenarios began going through my head.

When you watch this, you will have opinions because it’s impossible not to. I like to think that I would have made my family move, gotten new phones for all of us, and started a new life, but there is a privilege in that thought and not everyone is able to escape (or remove their child from) the awfulness they experience. I’ll just say – I’m glad they figured it out, this was quite the ride, and I look forward to talking to you about it when you’ve watched. There is definitely a story to tell here, and I just hope that everyone involved gets the distance and mental health assistance that they need because yikes. There’s a lot of trauma left in their wake.

Runtime: 94 minutes

Motion Picture Rating: TV-MA

Languages Spoken In The Film: English

Should You Watch It? Yes if you enjoy twists and turns

Did I Cry? Nope

My Rating: 3/5 Stars

Available: Free on Netflix