Unknown Number: The High School Catfish arrives like Netflix’s latest dare, turning suburban parenting into a psychological horror film. Audiences settle in expecting simple family drama, only to stumble into a psychological circus that feels like therapy notes rewritten by chaos itself. The platform thrives on painting small-town scandals in neon terror, and this time, the mom versus daughter storyline is only the appetizer. Beneath it all festers a motive that makes cyberbullying look almost nostalgic.

While Netflix sells catfish like popcorn, what if the real flavor was darker than parental betrayal and closer to obsession’s rotten core?

Forget PTA meetings and bake sales; Unknown Number: The High School Catfish revealed how Kendra Licari’s free time was consumed by Owen, her daughter’s boyfriend. Anonymous texts spiraled into explicit advances, fake identities, and manipulative games where she even pretended to be Lauryn Licari. When Owen moved on, Kendra Licari targeted his new girlfriend as if heartbreak were a group project. This was no simple cyberbullying; it was obsession disguised as parenting, making the scandal exponentially more sinister.

Kendra Licari justified her terror campaign as “protection,” citing her trauma as a sexually assaulted teenager to rationalize tormenting her daughter’s relationships. Director Skye Borgman layered theories like Munchausen by proxy, suggesting she harmed Lauryn  Licari to keep her close. What played out was less about safeguarding and more about weaponized fear disguised as maternal concern, with Netflix ensuring it streamed like psychological theater.

'Unknown Number' on Netflix: Inside the Disturbing High School Catfishing Scandal

While Netflix framed Kendra Licari’s chaos as tragic psychology, her texting spree turned everyday notifications into landmines, proving that true horror sometimes hides in unread messages, not haunted houses.

Over two years, Kendra Licari turned her phone into a battlefield. Up to 50 messages a day rained down on Lauryn Kendra and Owen, not just insults but existential bombs urging them to end their lives. This was cyber warfare disguised as teen drama, engineered to exhaust every ounce of hope. The sheer persistence proved more terrifying than a jump scare, creating a world where the villains live not under the bed but in the inbox.

Owen’s mother called Kendra Licari’s fixation “terrifying,” but Netflix treated it like background noise, the kind you ignore while microwaving popcorn. Inside the high school scandal, the camera lens clung to the mom-daughter catfight while Owen’s trauma collected dust in the corner. Critics argued this was a predatory obsession rebranded as binge-worthy drama. By chasing shock over nuance, the series proved streaming prefers viral headlines over horror’s messy reality, because spectacle always trends better than sincerity.

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What are your thoughts on Netflix’s framing of Unknown Number: The High School Catfish as a suburban nightmare packaged as a catfish thriller? Let us know in the comments below.