Fan art by a Luka obsessive named "Lexa Manicini." (Photo: Luka Magnotta Obsession)

Over the past few months, the 10 minute-long snuff film "1 Lunatic 1 Icepick"--which depicts alleged Canadian murderer Luka Magnotta brutally killing a Chinese student before having sex with his dismembered corpse--has swiftly rippled through the Internet's layered circles. It began first with the gore cognoscenti, then crept into Canadian newspapers and eventually hit critical mass with disturbing YouTube reaction videos.

Mr. Magnotta, a preening James Dean obsessive with a stomach-churning history of murdering kittens and courting infamous serial killers, is a personality type ripe for a cult following. And judging from his previous attempts to cultivate notoriety, that's exactly what he wants.

Ask and apparently you shall receive: The Huffington Post reported yesterday that Mr. Magnotta has become a magnet for fans across the U.S. and Canada, one of whom--improbably named Destiny St-Denis--even made a Facebook group in support of him. The group has since been shuttered by Facebook due to "inappropriate content."

Mr. Magnotta possesses all the key elements for a cultish folk hero: an attractive, innocent-looking appearance; youth; internet savvy; and a ghoulish crime that causes some to squirm in disgust while others become frozen, fascinated by a question that one Luka Magnotta fan site pointedly sums up: "How can a monster be so beautiful and so intriguing?"

That fan site is Luka Magnotta Obsession, which HuffPo reports is one of the more active destinations for supporters of Mr. Magnotta. Run by a Canadian girl who goes by the name "Lexa Mancini," Luka Magnotta Obsession reads like one long love letter penned by someone with a school girl crush. Rife with shirtless photos and rhyming poetry, it's not unlike fan sites you might find for Justin Bieber.

But for her part, Ms. Mancini is very self-aware about the fact that her obsession with an accused murderer--however handsome he may be--is disturbing. She freely admits that she obsesses about Mr. Magnotta primarily because he is attractive. In one comment on Luka Magnotta Obsession, she writes under the handle "1nicecanadiangirl1hugeobsession:"

maybe it’s my mind’s way of coping with the inexplicable dichotomy of Beauty and the Beast….the extreme beauty of the person vs the extreme ugliness of the alleged crime. I don’t know. All I do know is that I feel powerless to control these thoughts, and there is an amazing physical warm sensation when I think of him, something akin to love

That dichotomy is undoubtedly one of the reasons the case has attracted worldwide attention, as well as a following among the young and bloggy. A cursory Tumblr search unearths a host of Luka Magnotta fan blogs devoted to chronicling the trappings of his Internet persona. One user, "lmagnotta," echoes Ms. Mancini's excuse for her fascination, writing, "I don’t think I’m smitten, more so just interested. Interested in the case and Luka’s past."

Others take a more lighthearted tone towards the alleged murderer: one GIF, posted on the blog "Olivia Magnotta," shows Mr. Magnotta with a crown and lipstick Photoshopped on him above the sparkling text "Don't hate me coz I'm beautiful."

"Luka is now kawaii as fuck," wrote Olivia Magnotta.

A few weeks ago, Canadian broadcaster Scott Simpson interviewed Ms. Mancini on his radio show, and found her to be "the smart kind of nuts." She herself seems stunned by her own fascination with Mr. Magnotta, quick to acknowledge that logically her obsession makes no sense, but that for some reason she can't stop herself.

"I've never created a blog before in my life," she told Mr. Simpson. "But these thoughts are taking over my life and there's nobody, I can't tell people in real life. I talk about the case but I can't talk about the way I feel about it so I had to create this blog to put it out there."

Reaction to "1 Lunatic 1 Icepick."

Scat porn viral video "2 Girls 1 Cup" inspired a genre of horrified reaction videos, all in good fun. But the YouTube reactions to a video of a real, graphic, 10-minute murder circulating on gore forums and torrent sites are disturbing in themselves. The reaction videos are shot with a webcam pointed at the face of the person, or people, as they watch the video "1 Lunatic 1 Icepick" for the first time.

"This is a kind of '2 Girls 1 Cup reaction video,' but for this video," says one young man, YouTube user CandySoup, who mostly uploads videos of himself playing video games. He is wearing a baseball shirt and speaks cheerfully in a European accent. He begins watching the video and describing what happens. About two and a half minutes in, he starts screaming. "Holy fucking shit, that's messed up bro!" he screams, genuinely horrified. He calms down and compliments the New Order song that's on in the background. Around the five minute mark, he really starts freaking out, grabbing his head and shrieking. "Woah! Woah! What the fuck!" In the final third of the video, he is frozen and mostly silent and slack-jawed. When it finishes, he hangs and holds his head. The shot is blurry, but he looks like he might be crying.

"Okay, it's done," he says. He struggles to come up with a summary. "I'm done. Goodbye. This is just fucking wrong. God. Holy shit." The reaction video has 103,673 views. Comments have been disabled. 

In May, a video of a graphic murder titled "1 Lunatic 1 Icepick," in which a man murders, mutilates and molests a live victim was posted on the blood-and-guts fan site Best Gore. The 10-minute video turned out to be real—the murderer mailed parts of the body to Canadian political parties—and police have arrested gay porn star and Internet fameball Luka Magnotta in connection with the crime.

The CandySoup video is one of more than a dozen such reaction videos on YouTube; there are more on other sites across the web. One man watches the video while eating chili, ostensibly to show off his strong stomach. ("I read about this Luka Rocco Magnotta story today, and someone told me there was a really gruesome video of it on the web, I saw others doing reaction videos first and figured hey, I should do one, while eating a bowl of chili, and here it is...") Another watches it in a ski mask, casually bobbing his head to the music as he eats a banana. One girl tries to watch the video after being "told to react to it," but it won't load past a picture. "I don't like this. Okay. I don't like where this is going," she says, hyperventilating.

Reaction to "1 Lunatic 1 Icepick."

Another video shows a man in a beanie who says "enjoy watching me get scarred for life" in the description. "Oh no. It's a puppy," he moans at one point.

Why are people uploading their reactions to what is considered the most graphic snuff film of all Internet time, in which a real live person dies? The video has become water cooler conversation. Have you watched it? Have you seen it? I couldn't watch! "Watch if you dare," taunted one tweeter.

Two guys doing a reaction video for "1 Lunatic 1 Icepick."

Is this just another piece of shock content like anti-Semitic clickbait, footage of the NYPD versus Occupy Wall Street protesters, or whatever daily scandal has earned a Drudge siren? "So, something crazy happened today," says an L.A.-based musician and vlogger, Matthew Lush, in the introduction to his video reaction. "So, I was on Tumblr..." He finishes with, "I just wanted to vent about it, because I'm so disturbed..."

Well friends, there's life pre- 1 Lunatic 1 Icepick, and life after 1 Lunatic 1 Icepick. I'm now living in the latter. #JustWow

— Tripp Remmington III (@samfetamine) June 13, 2012

The "1 Lunatic 1 Icepick" video is spreading in a creepy viral motion similar to the photos of a homeless man in Miami whose face was chewed away by another man in the throes of some yet-to-be-determined phsychosis. Those graphic photos were posted on mainstream sites including BuzzFeed, Gawker and the Huffington Post and made their way around Twitter and Facebook as friends squealed over the grossness of it all. Framed as a zombie apocalypse story, the incident became a meme. "Miami Zombie (also known as “Miami Cannibal”) is the nickname given to Rudy Eugene, a deceased man who viciously attacked and cannibalized the homeless man Ronald Poppo in May of 2012," writes Know Your Meme.

1 Lunatic 1 icepick, i might do a video reaction for this, tho i have NO idea wat it is

— Badside(@ProtonBS) June 12, 2012

The zombie joke made it easier to "LOL, reblog!" the graphic photos with their implied backstory of violence. With "1 Lunatic 1 Icepick," whose victim was a Chinese student in Canada who was drugged and brutally beheaded, there is no such meme-ish narrative: it's just pure horror. The reaction videos seem to be meeting a real demand for those who are curious about the video or are trying to work up the nerve to watch it. One woman recorded a nine-minute discussion of the "video that sadly has become viral," without watching it herself. "I haven't watched it. I refuse to watch it. I did watch a couple of people, their reactions to it. Some people were very—I can't even use the word 'apathetic,' laughing, thinking the video was funny. To those of you that haven't watched it, and I beg of you to remain one of those that haven't watched it," she says.

"1 Lunatic 1 Icepick" itself shows no signs of fading away. Last week, news broke that the police had obtained a longer copy with audio.