Rating: 2.5/5
On Sept. 21, Netflix released “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.” Produced by Ryan Murphy, known for “American Horror Story,” both projects feature Evan Peters in its leading role in the first season. The show follows Jeffrey Dahmer, a notorious serial killer who murdered seventeen men and boys between 1978 and 1991, most of whom were men of color.
The cinematography of each scene in the show creates a disturbing atmosphere for viewers. Evan Peters’ embodiment of Dahmer certainly evokes an uneasy sensation in watchers. His socially awkward cues and lack of eye contact create an overall psychotic nature.. The show wastes no time in introducing Dahmer’s heinous actions through gorey imagery and sexual violence in multiple disturbing scenes in the first episode. Dahmer lures a man into his apartment where he then handcuffs and threatens him with a knife, forcing him to comply and stay put. The victim manages to escape the apartment then goes to the police. When the police officer searches through a drawer inside of his apartment, sickening images of Dahmer’s victims appear on the screen: graphic polaroids of naked men and his victims’ dead bodies—one even beheaded. One of the most heartbreaking moments in the show involves 14-year old victim, Konerak Sinthasomphone who managed to escape Dahmer’s apartment even while he was severely injured and drugged but still managed to go to the police. Despite seeing the face of a bleeding and terrified child, the police believed Dahmer’s claims that the boy was his 19-year old boyfriend who simply had too much to drink and excused Sinthasomphone back to Dahmer’s apartment, where he was strangled to death.
The show does good job at not sympathizing with the killer, unlike the “Conversations With a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes,” a documentary recently released by Netflix, which told the story from Dahmer’s point of view and attempts to explain Dahmer’s thought process while committing his crimes, going as far as sympathizing with his mental processes. Wendy Patrikus, Dahmer’s defense attorney who was featured in the documentary says she felt a mental connection with Dahmer and saw him as her brother. The documentary heavily emphasized Dahmer’s psychological side of his crimes. “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” focuses on the victims’ perspectives. The show also depicts the failure within the justice system as the police exhibited a lack of competence multiple times along with their blatant racism and homophobia.
However, the show’s main shortcoming is that only one episode in the series focuses on one of the victims, Anthony Hughes. The rest of Dahmer’s 17 victims are left nameless and are not given backstories until the very end when pictures and names are provided. The increased screen time and background given to this victim gives the impression that some victims are more important than others. According to The Guardian, Isabel Huges, the mother of this particular victim comments on the episode, “I feel like Netflix should’ve asked if we mind or how we felt about making it. They didn’t ask me anything. They just did it.” Isabel also said,“It’s sad that they’re just making money off of this tragedy,” in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. “That’s just greed,” she added.The families of the victims were not consulted regarding the making of the show. Although the cinematic creativity, exceptional acting, and informational content displayed in the show are reasons to watch the show, the employment of experiences faced by real people who are still affected by his crimes today to provide entertainment and gain profits is unethical. I would not recommend this show. Although there is no easy way to go about creating a show like this, the dramatization of the show exploits the victims, opening up old wounds of the families for profit.