This Netflix documentary on a crazy story has Internet users completely hallucinating

True crimes continue to be successful on Netflix at the start of the year. After breaking the house with Dahmer, Ryan Murphy’s series on the “monster of Milwaukee”, the platform did it again with a documentary devoted to the serial killer who shook America. At the start of 2023, the platform presented its subscribers with a new documentary that traces the journey of an internet hero who became a convicted murderer. Nicknamed “Kai the Hatchet Hitchhiker” (which is also the name of this documentary film), Kai rose to fame in the United States in 2013 after saving two young women from a mugging. Made just after the fact, his interview by a local channel has accumulated more than 3 million views to date. This act of bravery will even lead this homeless surfer to the plateau of the Jimmy Kimmel Live!, pretending to be a good Samaritan. But just three months after his recent stardom, Kai, real name Caleb McGillvary, is charged with murder. What did subscribers think of the transcript of the facts offered by Netflix?

Kai, the hatchet hitchhiker : captivated subscribers

After Charles Sobhraj, subject of the series The snake, Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer, the unthinkable story of this young American, adored and then imprisoned in just a few months, has aroused many reactions. On Twitter, for example, subscribers can’t believe it: “Incredible story of this guy“, “the story is crazy“, Another Netflix documentary madness! It’s crazy to be so good at it“, can we read on the social network. In just three days, the documentary has managed to rise to third place among the most watched films of the moment, just behind the sequel to the investigative film At Knives Out.

The birth of a murderer

For the one who is notably at the origin of the famous meme “Smash, smash, smash”, everything changed in May 2013, when the then 25-year-old American was arrested for the murder of lawyer Joseph Galfy, 73. , found dead in his New Jersey home. Kai then pleads not guilty, explaining that he had woken up at this man’s house after being drugged and sexually assaulted. The documentary also highlights how journalists, and more generally the American media, participated in the glorification of an unstable individual. “We would have to look into the fact that the guy showed them all the signs of being mentally unbalanced and they still wanted to exploit him as a money factory.“, underlines a user.

Article written in collaboration with 6Médias