Unmasking The Furry Detectives: Director Theo Love on True Crime, Internet Culture, and Confronting Evil

We recently debuted the trailer for The Furry Detectives, a provocative new true crime docuseries premiering July 17th on Sundance Now and AMC+. Ahead of the release, I had the opportunity to screen the full series—and what I found was far more disturbing, and far more human, than I expected.

At first glance, The Furry Detectives appears to explore the colorful, misunderstood world of furries, the fandom known for anthropomorphic animal costumes and vibrant online communities. But beneath the surface lies a chilling criminal investigation—one that exposes the darkest corners of internet anonymity, obsession, and exploitation.

To better understand the series and the unique challenges behind it, I spoke with director Theo Love, whose previous work includes acclaimed documentaries The Legend of Cocaine Island (2018) and Alabama Snake (2020). In our conversation, Love opened up about the emotional toll of documenting real evil, the responsibility of telling a story from outside a niche community, and why The Furry Detectives may be his most difficult—and most personal—project to date.

What follows is our full conversation. The transcript has been lightly edited for clarity but remains faithful to the spirit of our discussion.

DEREK: Theo, it’s a pleasure meeting you.

THEO: Oh, man. I’m glad to be talking with you, Derek. Thanks for taking the time.

DEREK: No, it’s absolutely my pleasure. So we’re here to talk about The Furry Detectives, your latest work. And just off the jump, I was immediately drawn in. Of course, furries have been in the zeitgeist for years now. I guess it’s an internet subculture thing that sort of pops up. It’s become a kind of internet shorthand for some of the more fringe or misunderstood corners of pop culture—sometimes spooky, often fascinating. What drew you to this story?

THEO: Yeah. I think that it was the furries. It really was the furries, because I didn’t know anything about them. I had seen little glimpses here and there, and they had been pretty much presented by the media and mainstream culture as weird. And you said the word “spooky,” and I think that we are scared of what we don’t understand. It’s easy to judge people that we just don’t relate to. And furries are hard to relate to. They are. They’re grown people who dress up like animals and enjoy playing anthropomorphic characters. And so that is something that I would say the majority of people are like, “I don’t even want to go there.” But those are the communities that I like to tell stories about.

And with The Furry Detectives, at the heart of it, this wasn’t some exposé about furries. At the heart of it, it was about furries who were heroes—furries who were solving crimes against animals. And there is nothing more relatable than people who love dogs and people who really care about animals. There’s nothing more relatable than that. And that’s what these furries did. There were dogs being hurt, and law enforcement couldn’t do anything about it. And so furries—animal… I wouldn’t say activists—just, they cared. They cared enough to do something about it.

And when they started this investigation, they didn’t have any reason to. It wasn’t like there was a camera around. I came way afterward. And when I looked at it, it was a true story of heroes from beginning to end. And they put some very bad people away—very bad people away. And as a consequence, there are so many animals that were saved from really, really, really bad situations.

DEREK:
It really is the definition of a fascinating story. In that sense, it reminded me of Don’t F**k with Cats on Netflix—I watched that a while ago and was completely consumed by it too.

There’s just something about the true crime genre that pulls you in. These people really do go above and beyond to stop bad things from happening—or from continuing to happen.

But was there any hesitation on your part with this story? You’re dealing with really serious, even soul-crushing material. Just knowing this stuff happens is hard enough. How do you deal with that personally?

THEO:
Wow, that is a good question. I had so much hesitation. Honestly, I had so much hesitation. I knew it was a good story, but I was like, Why me? Why am I the guy to do this?

And I would say that I had hesitation till the very last day of production, because it was really hard to talk about. And I would have team meetings—we had a crew that we traveled around. We went to four different states. We went to Australia. And there were a lot of really talented, really good people who worked on this film.

And every single day, we had meetings about everybody’s mental health and how the day was affecting them—how these conversations were affecting them—because I can’t even tell you how heavy these topics were.

And I had federal agents—who specialize in the worst of the worst—cry. Their bosses came in and told me they needed to take breaks just from talking about these things.

And so they have a big effect. When you hear about these crimes, it will affect you.

But that was what ultimately became the heart of my job: How do we shine a light on the darkest areas of society in a way that is productive and gives hope? Because I don’t want to make movies that make people feel bad. There’s enough in real life that makes you feel bad.

When you sit down and you watch The Furry Detectives, I want you to end with the knowledge that there are good people out there who are doing good work. And you can participate as well. These are ordinary citizens who are having a major impact. And those are the projects that I want to tell.

It’s a tough job—like, it is. It is. But I was very privileged to be able to do it.

DEREK:
No, and again, you did an amazing job.

I’ll admit—there was a part of me hoping you were a furry and would show up to this interview in full costume. But hey, that’s just me being funny.

Jokes aside, let’s talk about the furry community again for a moment. You really do a deep dive here—not just into the darker material, but into who these people are.

What surprised you the most about the community? What did you learn as you were getting to know them?

THEO:
I mean, I want to say something positive. I really want to only say positive things about the furries. And that’s genuine, because I think that it’s a great community.

But I wasn’t surprised by that. I wasn’t surprised to meet a bunch of good people who are furries.

What I was surprised by is some pushback on this story. And they often really, really distrust media—because media portrays them as a joke, as something to laugh at. “Aren’t they weird?”

And so I get that. I get the general hesitation: “You’re going to make me look bad.”

But it was deeper than that, actually. It was like, “Hey, we don’t want to talk about this issue.”

And it reminded me a little bit of the Catholic Church scandals, where it felt like there was a hesitation to acknowledge some of the bad things that were going on.

And when we are unable to acknowledge true evil in our communities, then we give it room to grow.

So I was surprised that there was any pushback on this story. I’m surprised even now—we put out the trailer for this thing, and God, there are so many furries who are terrified that I’ve spent four episodes making them look bad.

And I don’t know how else to say it other than: The furries are the heroes here, guys. The furries are the heroes.

Now, you can not want this story told because you don’t like the villain—but that doesn’t really make a lot of sense. You’re the hero. You took down terrible people, and you should highlight this, because you’re not the joke. This is your moment to be celebrated.

So I was surprised by that.

DEREK:
I think that’s a great point. On one hand, I’m not surprised, because there’s always stigma. Every community deals with some sort of stigma, and it pops up in ways that are unfair—and in some ways, maybe a little bit valid.

But it’s amazing how evil seeps into things in certain ways. And true crime explores that, because it has to.

Like, I’m a creative writer—my first two books were crime novels—and part of that was exploring the nature of evil. What makes somebody do bad things? What’s going on psychologically?

And you get to see that on display here, in a safe way. I hope people can learn from it.

I don’t want to put words in your mouth or anything, but I have a family. I worry about things online. And this is a perfect example of why you need to watch out and be very careful about what’s going on out there.

So in that sense, I’m really glad you’re doing this, because every community can suffer from this sort of thing—which is very powerful, in my opinion.

I would like to shift gears to the making of—because again, I’m a creative writer at heart and operate in journalism—but how do you go about constructing something just from interviews, just from hearing people talk?

You’ve got so many different personalities here. You’ve got these furry detectives, you’ve got some people involved in this stuff—and I was like, Oh my God.

And then you’ve got these federal agents.

How do you go about deciding how to form this story?

THEO:
Yeah, that’s my job—it’s how to form it. And it’s a lot of trial and error. Like, gosh, I hope the best ideas get on the screen, but I mean, I don’t wanna show you my brainstorming list of all my bad ideas that didn’t work.

But I don’t think anybody watches documentaries and says, “It was good, but I just wish there were more recreations.”

Recreations have come a long way, but I still don’t think people are saying that—except for me. I love recreations.

And maybe, like you, I view myself as a creative, and I don’t necessarily view myself as a journalist, because the people I’m interviewing—they have the facts, they have the story.

My job is to share their story in the most palatable package, and in a way that they feel best represents them.

And when I talk to people about how they want to be represented, it’s usually not an accurate portrayal of who they are. Just like my image of myself is probably a little bit more grandiose than what’s in the mirror, right?

So in this, I interviewed these furries, and I wanted to not just capture them as real people—but to capture the essence of why they’re furries.

And in order to do that, you have to have playful imagery. You have to approach it with some joy, some levity—and that is really, really hard to do tastefully when, like you said, there is evil in the story.

And if I can go back—I love the conversation about crime exploring evil.

And congrats on your two books, by the way. I think about writing a book and I’m like, That’s a million times harder than making a documentary.

But I pride myself on not being judgmental at all. And I think that some people could say I’m a moral relativist—where it’s like, you can generally make an argument for most things, right? If you understand who somebody is, you can understand why they do what they do.

This was the first project where I saw true evil. That is not an exaggeration. There is no other side to this. There is no argument for that. There is no argument for the crime here. This is as evil as you can get.

And these are crimes against dogs—which has a very special, or a very unique, impact on people. I think man’s best friend is the best line here. Like, hey—these are people who are hurting man’s best friend.

But also, unfortunately, there were innocent children involved in this as well.

And so when you attack the most vulnerable in our society, you are truly evil, and we need good people to stand up against that.

And so that is why it’s important for you to write novels and stories about crime—because it really gives us a framework for how to deal with evil in our society.

DEREK:
Absolutely. And unfortunately, we need to end it there—our time is short.

Theo, I would love to just ask you more questions.

The show will premiere July 17th on AMC+ and Sundance Now.

Again, congratulations. You did amazing work. Thank you for telling this story—I was legitimately riveted.

THEO:
Thank you. Thank you so much for giving us the attention, man, and promoting this. I really appreciate it.

DEREK:
Absolutely—my pleasure. Best of luck with everything.

END OF INTERVIEW

I want to thank Theo Love again for taking the time to talk to me about this project.
The Furry Detectives is available to watch tomorrow, July 17th on AMC+ and Sundance Now. If you are able to watch it, feel free to reach out to ACTION A GO GO on social media to share your thoughts.