Dahmer-Monster (series): Uncomfortably well-done

This new series on Netflix is a bit of a commitment as it is 10 episodes long and each episode is an hour long. It is a combination of historical events in Jeff Dahmer's life that show things that happened to lead to him becoming the person that he was and eventually to he gruesome killings that he did in Milwaukee.

This show kind of surprised me because when I read about its upcoming release I was thinking about how it would be difficult to showcase the events in his life seeing as how all of the people that he killed are of course dead and therefore we don't really know the information about it. As it turns out Jeffrey was quite open about what he did to the victims and even pointed out ones that the authorities wouldn't have found out about if he hadn't been so forthcoming during his interrogation.

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Evan Peters plays the title role as Jeff and they go back and forth in history to show him as an adult living on his own, as well as being a teenager in his troubled home-life. You might recognize Evan Peters from his roles in American Horror Story which IMO was not a great show, but he always did very well in whatever role he happened to be playing in it.

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It took me a minute to be able to identify him because they did such a good job of making him NOT look like he did in AHS. His roles in AHS tended to have a comic tone to them as was the overall theme of that relatively decent show that just went on for too long. Let's just say that there is nothing comical about his portrayal of Dahmer.

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When the real Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested back in the early 90's I was alive and of course very aware of the man's existence. However, we didn't have internet back then so getting all of the details, just like with anything else, was something that took a lot of work and just lucky timing on the part of anyone that was interested. Therefore, there are a ton of things that this series is pointing out to me that I didn't know previously. For instance, I had no idea that Jeff didn't make any attempt to flee the police, was never violent while in custody, and was very forthcoming about telling all of the details the police while they were asking him questions. He didn't lie or try to glorify himself, but he also didn't have a great deal of remorse for what he had done. He did realize that he was different than other people and was very aware of the fact that what he had done was something he is not supposed to do.

There are some critics out there that are attacking this show for kind of glorifying him and also attempting to take blame away from the individual and instead pin the problems on various things that happened during his upbringing such as being from a broken home, having very little in the way of good parenting, and also being an awkward social outcast when young. Obviously these are not excuses for anyone to kill and eat a bunch of people, but in one way or another all of us are products of the environment that we grow up in so I am actually happy that they presented it in this way. If it weren't for this show I would have had no idea about these things and they are quite interesting to see. I of course have no idea about how much of it is true and would like to think that much of it is based on the interviews that Jeff granted before he was sentenced and then later killed in prison.

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It may surprise some people out there that Molly Ringwald is in this series as well and this is an interesting choice. I hadn't heard of her doing anything since she did that ill-advised role where she took her top off back in the 90's.

Should I watch it?

I was always going to watch this because of my age and the fact that Netflix doesn't really have a lot of things worth seeing on it at the moment. If you were not alive during the time of the actual events you have almost certainly heard of Jeff Dahmer and how unusual of a criminal he was. This series actually has an interesting way of presenting the story as they jump back and forth in time to showcase various parts of his life and attempt to paint a picture of how it is that Jeffrey ended up the way that he did. Although they have been accused of doing so, I don't feel it was their intention to make any sort of excuses for Jeffrey, although I will admit that there are times that you can't help but feel a bit sorry for him.

The various scenes are very sexual and graphic, so there is going to be some uncomfortable moments for a lot of viewers. So much in fact that I would imagine that some regions will ban it from ever being on the local Netflix at all and if you are in one of those areas you will maybe need to get a torrent of the show in order to see it at all.

I have not yet finished the show, but I know that I will. It has kept me up a lot later than I had anticipated the last 2 nights and I would imagine that the same thing is going to happen for the next few nights as well.

I'm learning a lot about the man as this story goes on and can only hope that the writers are at least trying to be as accurate as possible. The show is chilling, very well cast, and even though we all already know the ending, you are going to learn something along the way that maybe you didn't want to know. This is one of the best series (so far) that I have seen on Netflix in 2022.