True crime is a wildly popular genre in both film and television, and projects centered around serial killers are near the top. The figures at the top of that list are the most infamous: the Zodiac (This Is the Zodiac Speaking, Zodiac) and Ted Bundy (Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes; Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile), for example. But there’s an inherent problem with these projects that isn’t easily overcome, and that’s the killers themselves. The killer often becomes romanticized, with their victims an afterthought, “tasks” that need to be checked off while telling the killer’s story. And there is arguably no greater example than Ryan Murphy’s Monster anthology series, the first of which, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, told the tale of Jeffrey Dahmer, aka “the Milwaukee Cannibal.” Yet it’s a 2002 movie about the killer that did overcome that problem, and is far more worth one’s time than Murphy’s account: Dahmer.
‘Dahmer’ Doesn’t Waste Time
That final point above marks the biggest difference between the two ventures. Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story clocks in at 10 hours, spread across 10 episodes, spanning Dahmer’s life from adolescence to his 1994 death in prison. But does his story need 10 hours to tell? It’s definitely hard to justify it. The first five episodes blur into one another, flipping between Dahmer’s strange childhood and his predatory, blood-soaked adulthood, while the final five draw out the aftermath of his arrest. Those 10 hours, then, are padded with unnecessary exposition, wholly gratuitous murders, and repetitive shots at a failed system.
Here’s the problem with that. Rather than depicting Dahmer as the monster of the title, he becomes romanticized. So much time was devoted to his life growing up that many expressed sorrow, even sympathy, for Dahmer. He is, for lack of a better explanation, as much a victim as those he victimized (casting the “dreamy” Evan Peters certainly didn’t hurt). The repetition of moments that Dahmer could have been caught further adds to this backwards view of Dahmer. It shifts the blame from Dahmer to the system that should have found him first, essentially excusing his acts as the result of police incompetence. As for the gratuitous murders, more on that further down.
Dahmer, on the other hand, comes in at a lean 102 minutes, cutting away the fat — admittedly a poor choice of words, but apt — and remaining focused on the killer himself, played by Jeremy Renner. For all its noble intentions, Murphy’s piece gets tied up in its own ambitions, where Dahmer is single-minded and grounded. The morbid curiosity of his childhood is captured in a single sequence where his father, Lionel (Bruce Davison) finds hidden jars of chemicals and animal bones in the shed, leading to a terse interaction about Jeffrey’s isolation. Those flashbacks to his past are interspersed through the events of a single night, his last as a free man, giving us all the exposition we need. Furthermore, a single scene, where two police officers wave off the concerns of two Black women and take Dahmer at his word about an escapee from his apartment, says all that needs to be said about that shameful aspect of the story.
‘Dahmer’ Is Style Over Substance
One of the biggest criticisms levied against Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, and the franchise as a whole, is the gratuitousness of the murders, as mentioned above. Each victim’s tragic end is brought to the screen in a visceral recreation, turning each murder into a spectacle. It was a damning decision that didn’t go over well with critics, and especially did not go over well with the victim’s families. As Rita Isbell, the sister of Dahmer victim Errol Lindsey, later said, the recreation of her victim impact statement felt like she was reliving it all over again, adding, “It brought back all the emotions I was feeling back then. I was never contacted about the show. I feel like Netflix should’ve asked if we minded or how we felt about making it. They didn’t ask me anything. They just did it.” This, despite claims from Murphy that his team reached out to the families of Dahmer’s victims.
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Dahmer cleverly avoids this by neglecting even to portray the victims, let alone their fates. It is less a recreation than a psychological profile, a look at Dahmer’s internal conflict, unable to rationalize what he does but surrendering to his dark impulses all the same. As such, the victims as a whole are unneeded, and the only three we meet — Khamtay (Dion Basco), Lance Bell (Matt Newton) and Rodney (Artel Great) — aren’t even actual victims, but rather generalized composites that exist for the viewer to understand his mindset at any given time. Dahmer avoids gratuitous violence altogether, building the horror around the expectation and emotional dread of his actions and cutting away (again, bad choice of words) before the act actually happens. It sets up what is the best scene in the film, where Dahmer and Rodney, a young black man he invites home, engage in a chess match of sorts, with Rodney opening up and trying to get answers, while Dahmer evades, struggling with his intent to murder Rodney.
Where both projects succeed is with their respective leads. Peters bears an uncanny physical resemblance and a devotion to match Dahmer’s particular tics and cadence. For the intent of Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, Peters brings that detachment and chilling, calculated manner, at ease with the explicit gratuity and how it plays out. For Dahmer, Renner relies less on physical resemblances and more on the psychology behind Dahmer, a powder keg of awkwardness and desperation. What it boils down to is this: Dahmer and Renner offer a refreshing and unique look at a monster no one can ever understand, in a way that neither romanticizes him nor dishonors his victims. Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is a “greatest hits” package that dramatizes what we already know in an exploitative manner, offering nothing new. Choose how you spend your time wisely.
