Review : Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story

From a production standpoint, this is pretty flawless. There is no question that American Horror Story's Ryan Murphy has a keen eye. He also comes with the typical Hollywood baggage of wanting to tell their story rather than the story so they can work their own politics and views into. If you have only a pedestrian interest in the history his work touches on, then the entertainment value beats out the historical accuracy, after all who needs those pesky facts anyways. Most of this has become so common place in anything coming out of Hollywood, as a viewer I just tune it out. The impeccable citing of Evan Peters who gives a legendary performance as the title character is the spoon full of sugar that makes the medicine go down. 

With that said the story telling and writing is a fucking mess. Perhaps this would have been time better spent condensed into a three-hour movie. Ryan Murphy is a fan of serial killers, having had many make cameos on American Horror Story. He gave a glamorized and almost cartoonish portrayal of Richard Ramierz on American Horror Story and managed to squeeze in Ed Gein and John Wayne Gacy into this show. Here it seems he was unsure what message he was trying to get across here. The show is marketed as being from the victim's perspective, yet Jeff feels like the protagonist most of the time due to Peter's charismatic acting. Is it Black Lives Matter? or Black live are delicious?  At time they spin things like this was an issue of race with the white man-eating people of color, then have Jeff come out and say this is not the case and it was about his abandonment issues. Is he a calculating killer driven by a compulsion to rack up a 17-person body count m with 15 of them in an apartment or did he skate by due to faulty police work. 

Some of the more glaring liberties taken include the fact that Glenda Cleveland who is a focal point of the story, did not live next door to Dahmer, but in a building next to Dahmer's. This shoots down the impact of the trauma she claims to have had on the show due to this and her credibility as a witness when it came to her calling the police. But when you are trying to push a point why stick to something like the facts. Despite this the Peters / Murphy combo proved enough to keep me entertained and watching, as someone who has a long-standing interest in serial killers, it was on par with "Mindhunter" in terms of capturing the mood with the title character. Other pieces of trivia about the case, were shown here which have not really gotten this same treatment in other on-screen depictions of Dahmer.    

I have seen some response online of people saying that the show needed warning as it was too triggering for them and some even said traumatizing.  It is not Hollywood or any entertainment entity's job to protect your feelings or tip toe around your psychological issues.  Those are your responsibility. If you know a show about a serial killer who is a cannibal might be too much for your tender mind, then do not watch it. You perhaps should not watch tv at all and might find reading up on cognitive Behavorial therapy a better investment in your time. Aside from that I was eager to make it through the show, but the last few episodes dragged and the story lines with some of the victims' families or the fictional relationship episode could have been edited down as it lost momentum there.