Netflix is a data-driven platform. It monitors the viewing habits of its 158 million subscribers so closely that it not only knows what you watch, but when you watch it, how much of it you watch, the overriding trends that are most likely to appeal to you and even the thumbnail images most likely to convince each possible demographic to try a new series. The data that Netflix has at its disposal is terrifying and monumental.

However, you can’t deny that it has been put to good use, offering viewers what they want before they even know they want it. Don’t F**k With Cats is a case in point: Netflix has coalesced its vast reserves of subscriber information and deduced that what the world needs more than anything else is a true crime documentary series about obsessive internet users and cats. What a genius move. What a home run. What a no-fail combination of everything that everyone likes, bundled up together and released into the world on the same week as arguably the most high-profile film about cats ever made.

The story of Don’t F**k With Cats doesn’t really matter; you’d watch it even if you thought – as I initially did – that it was going to simply be a You’ve Been Framed-style compilation of cats attacking people. However, the masterstroke here is that the narrative is simply unbelievable. And – this should be said upfront – it’s incredibly upsetting. This aspect can’t really be overstated. There are moments that are viscerally harrowing. The story begins with a video uploaded to YouTube that graphically depicts the torture and murder of two small kittens. You don’t see the video – or any subsequent similar videos – in the documentary, but there are plenty of Grizzly Man-style reactions nevertheless. One is by a senior police officer who ends up reduced to tears. It is a violently distressing programme. If you’re even slightly queasy about this sort of thing, I’d seriously recommend giving it a miss.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Violently distressing’ ... Deanna Thompson in Don’t F**k With Cats. Photograph: Netflix

Nevertheless, the story is incredible. An anonymous user uploads the kitten video, and it appals a group of Facebook users so strongly that they use every tool in their disposal to track him down. They parse the video frame by frame for something – anything – that will give them a clue to the killer’s whereabouts. Plug sockets and cigarette packets are scrutinised. A specific blanket is tracked down through eBay. The expertise of an incredibly niche online vacuum cleaner forum is consulted. Metadata is cross-referenced with Google Maps.

There are elements of Don’t F**k With Cats that play out like the film Catfish, if Catfish had any real stakes. But it also takes time to explore the darker impulses of the amateur detectives. The fate of one falsely identified suspect is genuinely horrible to witness, and key members of the investigation repeatedly ask themselves whether they were solving a crime or simply egging on a violent criminal.

One key member – a woman named Deanna Thompson – is the de facto narrator of the series. As you’d expect from someone as Very Online as her, she’s incisive and witty, and quick to pull the threads together in a dynamic way.

But that’s arguably the biggest problem with the series. This is a show with a jokey title and a self-aware narrator that splashes around in some of the worst human behaviour imaginable. As soon as the horror of the cat videos subsides, we’re off on a wild goose chase of reverse image searches, Google Street View sweeps and fake identity databases. And then we learn who the murderer is, and that his murders are about to escalate beyond cats. We meet the family of his victim, and the lurching duality of the series threatens to become untenable.

It is beautifully presented – if, as with all Netflix true crime shows, it could benefit from a more ruthless edit – and the final episode ends with a flourish of bow-tying not seen since the climax of The Usual Suspects. But it still makes me deeply uneasy that a man who committed an awful crime purely to gain notoriety has now been dragged out of obscurity to be celebrated in a buzzy Netflix show. The best thing about Don’t F**K With Cats is that the makers seem to at least acknowledge this. The worst thing is that they went ahead and made it anyway.