Netflix's 'Running with the Devil' is so wild it could make Tiger King look tame

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Running With The Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee arrives next month

john mcafee in sunglasses on a boat
(Image credit: Netflix)

Netflix shows regularly feature among the best true crime documentaries, and its next big release on that front looks like another hit. 

As Deadline reports, Running with the Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee will follow the antivirus mogul after the 2012 murder of his neighbor in Belize. McAfee, who died last year, was a suspect in the murder, and went on the run to avoid the authorities — as well as, he claims, a Mexican cartel. 

As the below trailer makes clear, McAfee was convinced he’d be killed while in police custody, though his paranoia didn’t stop him bringing a film crew along to document the whole experience.

From what we know of it, it should be a fascinating watch. The crew had access to hundreds of hours of footage, and conducted multiple interviews with people close to the entrepreneur, who was at one time worth an estimated $100 million.

After fleeing into the Belizean rainforest (with copious amounts of guns, drugs and alcohol in tow), McAfee was eventually detained in Guatemala in December 2012, and deported to the United States. But in the following years his actions got arguably even more bizarre.

There was, for instance, the incident with McAfee’s “hack-proof” Bitfi crypto wallet, which was almost immediately hacked multiple times, the multiple attempts to run for President, the $1,100 hack-proof phone that ran on the all-too vulnerable Android, and his repeated promotion of cryptocurrencies — something that saw him indicted for fraud and money laundering in early 2021.

To top it all off, 2019 saw McAfee on the run again, this time evading U.S. authorities for tax evasion. He was eventually arrested in Spain in late 2020, and in June 2021 the Spanish National Court authorized his extradition to face charges in Tennessee. Hours later McAfee was found dead, with his death ruled a suicide.

John McAfee was a colorful character, to say the very least, and Running With The Devil may provide some insight into the man’s mind. It may even make Tiger King’s Joe Exotic look positively tame by comparison. 

Running With The Devil: The Wild World of John McAfee is being produced by Curious Films, and will hit Netflix on August 24 as a single 105-minute long documentary. If you want some McAfee action before then, you can stream the 2016 documentary Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee on Showtime.

Read next: The John McAfee documentary has just arrived on Netflix, and it's already climbing the top 10 list

Tom Pritchard
Tom Pritchard
UK Phones Editor

Tom is the Tom's Guide's UK Phones Editor, tackling the latest smartphone news and vocally expressing his opinions about upcoming features or changes. It's long way from his days as editor of Gizmodo UK, when pretty much everything was on the table. He’s usually found trying to squeeze another giant Lego set onto the shelf, draining very large cups of coffee, or complaining about how terrible his Smart TV is.