Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Review – Overly Long Though Nuanced Retelling

Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story on Netflix is yet another iteration of the oft-told story of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. The series depicts, in gruesome detail, Jeffrey Dahmer’s seventeen accounted murders committed over a period of 13 years, his penchant for necrophilia and cannibalism, and finally, his capture and conviction. Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story also chronicles the serial-killing spree from the pov of the victims, their back stories, and its devastating repercussions on their families.

Evan Peters nails the mannerisms, voice modulation, accent and absolute look of the real-life serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, all of which can be seen in the numerous recordings of interviews, court proceedings and material available from the early nineties. The similarity between the real-life Dahmer and Evan Peters’ reel version is striking. It’s an all-round terrific performance from Evan Peters. The actor has to portray Jeffrey Dahmer in various phases of his life — from the teens to his early thirties — all of which Evan Peters has captured in fine detail.

 

Richard Jenkins is phenomenal as Jeffrey Dahmer’s father, Lionel Dahmer. He’s especially excellent when he brings forth Lionel’s devastation and helplessness at discovering Jeffrey’s horrifying misdeeds. Niecy Nash as Glenda Cleveland, Jeffrey’s immediate neighbour, is equally good. The actors who play Jeffrey’s victims are superb – the way they convey the fear and horror of what awaits them is convincing and remarkably realistic. The rest of the cast lends good support.

The story of notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is one of the most chronicled, ever since the horrifying case hit headlines back in 1991. Numerous documentaries, series, films, a book or two, even a comic book for that matter, on his life and times have been out in the public domain since long. Yet, Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story gets a lot of things right that its previous avatars didn’t — not for trying, but because they never bothered with it. Netflix’s true crime series humanises the poor victims of Dahmer’s monstrosities, instead of relegating them to obscurity as a bunch of names and statistics. Entire episodes of the ten-episode series are dedicated to telling the story from the point of view of the victims.

 

Episode 6, titled ‘Silenced’, focuses totally on one of Jeffrey’s victims, Anthony Hughes. Tony was a deaf model, who didn’t let his disability hold him back. The episode shows viewers glimpses of his life – from his birth, his growing up years and how he came to be a model despite his disability. Several sequences in the episode are deliberately muffled, so that we view his life from the perspective of his hearing disability. The episode ends in the most gory manner, of course, but not before showing us enough to get invested in Tony Hughes and his gruesome death at the hands of Jeffrey Dahmer. Ironically, Tony seems to be the only one who kind of understood Jeffrey, his loneliness and his lack of confidence.

 

Episode 8, titled ‘Lionel’, depicts the hell the victims families went through when they learnt the truth behind the manner of death of their beloved sons or brothers. Member after member of the victims’ families take to the witness box to recount their grief and horror at their loved ones’ murders. The episode brims with heartrending scenes, all taken from real-life statements of the victims’ family members, most of which can be found on YouTube.

 

The nature and reality of Jeffrey Dahmer’s story necessitates the need to show blood, gore and grisly scenes, without which the series wouldn’t be half as compelling. But nowhere does Ryan Murphy, creator of the series, overdo the grisly stuff. We are spared having to look at the actual murders, chopping up of body parts, drilling of brains, and so on, as most of it is only suggested, never shown.

 

 

The series constantly talks of the stench emanating from Dahmer’s apartment. Ominous shots of a blood-stained mattress, electric saw with blood clotted around it, a large, dank barrel sitting in the corner of Dahmer’s room – these shots and more like them are enough to evoke fear, dread and disgust in the viewer. Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story shows not even a fraction of the real extent of Jeffrey Dahmer actual deeds, an account of which can be found on Wikipedia and other online resources. Compared to the reality of it all, this new Netflix take on the Milwaukee Cannibal is quite tame really.

 

That said, the non-linear style of storytelling adopted by the series is quite irritating and confusing. The constant back and forth between different time periods in Jeffrey Dahmer’s life drags down the pace of the series. It also serves to confound the viewer to an extent. The runtime of the series is another of its drawbacks that rankles. 10 episodes, almost an hour each, is too long; and too meandering. Sequences begin to get repetitive after a while, and the slow pace bores you out of your wits. The story picks up pace in the latter half of the series, but by then you’re engulfed by ennui.

 

The one hard and distressing truth that Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story slams home forcefully – the dysfunctional law and order system in the USA of those days that turned a blind eye to numerous red flags concerning Jeffrey Dahmer’s behaviour – all because he was white. Black, gay, poor – all three identities combined to make Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims invisible to the police; and their disappearances a trifle matter for them. It is a shocking reality that sparked major debates and protests back then.

 

Ultimately, however, what haunts you for long after you’ve finished watching the series is none of the above — not the depraved slaughtering and butchery the series shows; nor the blatant and rampant racial discrimination in the America of those days; and not the gruesome fate of the victims. It is the slow, painful descent of a young boy into the madness that turned him into one of the most hated and notorious serial killers of America. It is the failure of little Jeffrey’s parents to understand his isolation, his feeling of abandonment, his longing for unconditional love, his desperate need to not be made to feel like a failure, and so much more.

 

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story does not glorify its central character as some kind of almost-invincible anti-hero. Instead it looks at the man’s life with empathy, never condoning his deeds, but trying to understand what turned a bright young boy into a monster.

 

And that is what stays with you for several days after you’ve finished watching the series – the young four-year-old having to witness his drug-addled mother’s depravity; the seven-year-old beseeching his dad with the innocence of childhood, “Please don’t go, Dad”; the seventeen-year-old abandoned and left to fend for himself in the back of nowhere for three long months, with no food and no one to talk to; the young school graduate told by his dad to go to community college because that’s where failures go; peers who don’t think twice before labelling a classmate ‘weirdo’ just because he’s different from them.

 

Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story leaves you distressed and depressed by all of the above. And then the blood, gore and murders begin to seem like a mere subplot.

Warren Ellis and Nick Cave’s background music is ominous and foreboding. The baleful music perfectly complements the bone-chilling story that unfolds on screen. Jason McCormick and John T. Connor’s cinematography is excellent. The squalor and depravity that pervades Jeffrey Dahmer’s world is showcased flawlessly by the duo’s camerawork.

Performances

Nuanced storytelling

Focus on victims

Non-linear structure of storytelling

Too long and meandering

Too slow and repetitive in some parts

Yes, kind of