Netflix's Dahmer - Why It's The Best (And Most Frightening) Serial Killer Series To Date
Produced by American Horror Story’s Ryan Murphy, Netflix’s 10-part series Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is a turning point for serial killer portrayals, be it for TV, streaming, or movies. There have been a number of attempts made to adapt Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes, including a 2002 feature-length version starring future Hawkeye Jeremy Renner as the famed murderer. The most recent version was My Friend Dahmer, an adaptation of the 2012 graphic novel by Derf Backderf, which told a tale of Dahmer just before he began his killing spree.
But, nothing produced before, be it a film, documentary, or graphic novel or otherwise can come close to the mesmerizing, horrific, shocking, brutal, emotional, and in-depth exploration of Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which benefits from an amazing cast, exceptional creative execution, and a 10-episode run that allows the story to breathe, focusing on more than the gruesome details, but the fallout that was left in Dahmer’s wake, be it with the victim’s families, Dahmer’s own family, as well as the entire country.
For many who grew up in the era when Dahmer was captured, his name became synonymous with cannibalism, as he was known to eat his victims, as well as keep mementos of them, from heads, penises, skulls, bones, hearts, organs, etc. These details were the things everyone clung to, as they are so awful, so terrifying, that it’s impossible to imagine Dahmer as anything but pure evil, a monster lurking among us. It’s this conclusion that makes it easier for everyone to make some kind of sense of his crimes, and it may well be the most rational reason.
However, Netflix’s Dahmer shows more to the monster, peeling back the layers of his evil to explore what led to his compulsion to destroy human lives. Now, before you get up in arms and think that I’m going to try and convince you that there should be sympathy for the devil, let’s pump the brakes. Jeffrey Dahmer was, as the title of the show says, a monster. Plain and simple, he was an evil person who lived by that belief. But the question remains, as it always does when we hear of a human being doing something horrific to another human being.
Dahmer shines in another way that no other serial killer show (or film) ever has before, as it puts a spotlight on the lives he destroyed, be it victims or his own family. No other portrayal has given so much time to these individuals in Dahmer’s story, instead focusing on the horrific crimes in horror-movie fashion. And, while Dahmer doesn’t pull any punches there, it also doesn’t sidestep the human lives that were affected, giving them a voice that has long been silenced by their fate.
A History Of Violence
Just before I decided on a career path in my early college years, I wanted to be an FBI profiler. I had always had a fascination with the question of “why” serial killers would do the things they do, and I felt a fiery rage when I thought about what they did to others. In short, it pissed me off. I wanted to be someone that stopped them. So, I began to read, mostly the books by John Douglas, the father of profiling, which would later inspire the David-Fincher-produced-Mindhunter series (also on Netflix and unceremoniously canceled).
What I found in those books, however, was a state of mind that was crippling. Reading about the awful things that these killers did, down to the last detail, was enough to turn the tide. I couldn’t live with those details every day. Taking it home with me. Letting it infest my dreams. Even Douglas suffered a heart attack and went into a coma over the stress of the job. I took a step back from the pursuit of that career, feeling that it would completely consume me, perhaps even take my own humanity in the process. I would later join the Army to go to war, which wasn’t all that better, so there’s that. Fate frequently has a roadmap for us that we can try to deviate from, only to be pulled back on the path of our destiny despite our best efforts to avoid it.
Although I wasn’t pursuing profiling as a career, my fascination with the macabre world of serial killers never ended. There are several film and TV shows that have kept me from shaking that fascination loose, some of them exceptional pieces of entertainment. Fincher has delivered on multiple fronts, with the Mindhunter series, as well as the classic films Se7en and Zodiac. Patty Jenkins’ Monster with Charlize Theron, Citizen X with Donald Sutherland, The Frozen Ground with Nicolas Cage, and other classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Manhunter, The Silence of the Lambs, Psycho, and countless others have kept the genre, and these horrific stories alive for decades.
But, why?
Why the fascination with stories about humans killing humans in horrific ways? It’s simple. It’s because most people can’t imagine doing such things, so they seek to find a reason that someone else would. It’s basic human logic in that sense. We want to know the reason, the “why” if you will because then it makes it easier to understand. It makes it simple. It sets us apart from these monsters and even makes us feel better about ourselves, as we know we’d never do anything like what they did. For some, it helps assuage their own fears that they could potentially become a killer, as their lives lacked the “evil” ingredient that led those monsters to do evil deeds.
What Dahmer does is something far more complex than letting everyone off the hook with a simple, “Well, he was pure evil” or “Well, he was crazy.” He was likely both to some degree, but the reality is that it was much more complex, disturbing, frightening, and sad than has ever been portrayed before.
The series dives deeper into his world, his victims, and his legacy, no matter how ugly or uncomfortable it may be. For some viewers, it’s impossible to watch such things, be it because of the shocking nature of the crimes or, quite simply, they can’t stomach learning or dissecting the history of a serial killer. There is no room to relate or, daresay, feel something more than bitter hatred for an evil soul. And I get that. I totally get that. We fear and hate what we can’t understand, and we will never understand Dahmer. But his journey to becoming what he became is a fascinating one, as it challenges our very nature as human beings.
The atrocities of humanity are well documented throughout history, but none so much as in the 20th and 21st centuries. Before then, things get foggy, but there are accounts, drawings, tales, and the like, that show how dark the human heart can truly get. Violence against our fellow man has been traditionally horrific and frequently attributed to things that were weirdly accepted, war being the biggest contributor.
When men are trained to murder one another, it’s not in a way that’s meant to be civil. We use any means at our disposal, be it bullets, bombs, or bayonets, to end the lives of our enemy. The difference between that and, say, a serial killer, is that we do it in the name of something perceived to be righteous. But, we still do it.
My grandfather was in WWII as an engineer, ironically in the 25th ID, a unit I would eventually serve under in Iraq. He took many pictures while there, mostly of downed aircraft and fields of destruction, but he had one photo in his possession that both my brother and I became obsessed with. My father whispered about it and showed it to us once, pulling it out of a memento box that had all manner of items from that era. The photo in question was of a U.S. Soldier, a black man, smiling a big, wide toothy smile as he squatted on the ground. In his hands, held like a trophy, was a decapitated Japanese soldier’s head.
It never crossed my mind that the soldier was a serial killer or anything like it, but, then again, why not? While I don’t believe the man holding that soldier’s head was a serial killer, I know that humans are capable of a brutality that goes far beyond what we fear. I know that when men kill each other on the battlefield and there’s time to take pictures, pictures are taken. The bloody, visceral carnage is documented, usually as a crime scene to record the incident and create a record of what was recovered, etc. But, on occasion, there are pictures taken as if they were trophies, like a prized buck killed during deer-hunting season.
That’s not to say that serial killers are equivalent to soldiers. They aren’t. But, to say that war hasn’t put men in those positions is simply a lie. Not every soldier in war has committed such deeds, even if they killed their enemies regardless. However, throughout history, before the Geneva conventions and rules of engagement, and everything else we’ve done to try and “civilize” war, men killed their fellow men with prejudice, extreme violence, hatred, and gruesome viciousness. Read what the Comanche would do to their captives and enemies in G.C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon for an idea or read the account of the Mai Lai massacre by U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War. Watch an execution video by Al Qaeda or read about ISIS torturing, beheading, and burning their captives alive and on camera. Or, if you need something timelier, read what Russian forces are doing to civilians and soldiers in Ukraine.
History is ripe with humanity at its worst and history is ongoing. As a species, we have done depraved, awful, unforgivable things to one another. And none is more documented and awful than the sick and twisted crimes of serial killers. This brings me back to Dahmer and what the series does to highlight one of the more tragically awful, gruesomely twisted, and unforgivably awful killers that humanity has produced. But, make no mistake, this monster was human, and this human was a monster. It would be easy to paint him with one simple brush of evil, and while that much may be true, there’s simply more to the story and the show touches on those aspects in ways that have never been done before.
Dahmer succeeds brilliantly in its display of the macabre, twisted, tragic, and horrifying life of one of the most famous serial killers known to date. It doesn’t glorify him, nor does it make him a cartoon villain. It’s a portrait of madness, sickness, depravity, and the unfortunate reality of how truly frightening and scary the world really can be as the monsters are among us, not in fairytales, movies, and comic books. It’s a portrait of humanity at its worst, at its best, and its most real. There are moments that shocked me, scared me, moved me, and left me with a heavy mind long after it was over. To me, leaving a lasting impression is something that can’t be ignored when it comes to a filmed project and Dahmer is something that will stay with me for a very long time.
The Players
I decided to do a separate section on the performances, as there are three standouts in this series that deserve attention. Evan Peters plays Dahmer in the series, who is best known for his work on Murphy’s American Horror Story series, as well as playing Quicksilver in Fox’s X-Men franchise. He also made an impression in Mare of Easttown as Detective Colin Zabel, which won him an Emmy. To put it lightly, Peters is the embodiment of Dahmer in the show. As an actor, he fully commits to the role, performing things onscreen that take true bravery, risk, and sacrifice, showing the harsh, disturbing, and absolutely horrific things that Dahmer did without hesitation, but also with a poised, purposeful, and hauntingly realistic portrayal. By far, Dahmer is Peters’ best role to date and puts him echelons above his peers. From the “aw, shucks” demeanor befitting his Wisconsin roots, to the sadistic, obsessive trance-like state he takes on when performing his ritualistic killings, Peters’ embodies Dahmer in a way that has yet to be achieved, revealing his character, his sadness, his depravity, and his commitment to evil that simply can’t be explained in any simple way.
Veteran actor Richard Jenkins, best known for his work in HBO’s Six Feet Under, Step Brothers, Olive Kitteridge, and a multitude of other projects, plays Dahmer’s father, Lionel Dahmer, with an irritable beauty. Jenkins brings Lionel to life as a caring, loving, selfish, clueless, enabler who is too blind to see the truth of his son’s nature, instead treating him like a helpless child, all the while avoiding questions, patterns, and signs that show much more is going on in his son’s life. Dahmer also dives into something that is rarely discussed or covered in such portrayals, which is the guilt and question of responsibility the parent of a serial killer goes through.
Jenkins brilliantly exudes the rollercoaster of emotion that befalls many a parent who finds out their child is a monster. While we frequently pose the question, “How could they not know?” Dahmer shows the audience how easily, frustrating or not, a conniving serial killer can trick those that love them into thinking everything is all right. But the show also peels back the layer of how much geniality may play into the making of a killer, as well as upbringing, as Lionel tries to come to terms with his son being a murderous monster.
In the end, Lionel is a father that loves his son, just as Frankenstein loved his monster. It’s not for everyone to understand or agree with. It simply is the way it is and Jenkins portrays this conundrum brilliantly, proving yet again that he’s one of the most brilliant character actors in Hollywood. There are a number of scenes, including just after Dahmer is sentenced, as well as after his death, where Jenkins really shines, displaying a range of emotions that will challenge you. While we may feel absolute hatred for the monster that Dahmer was, Lionel was his father and Jenkins plays it perfectly in-line with what that means.
Dahmer’s victims are also portrayed at length, giving them personality well beyond a hook-up gone wrong at a gay nightclub, which has frequently been the case. In Dahmer, the victims have a voice for once, and we’re able to see aspects of their lives and personalities. We don’t get a life story of each of them, but we get to know many aspects that make them human beings as much as victims. Predominantly young gay men, these men had lives, dreams, hopes, and families that loved them. They were human beings, occupying a time and place that made them exceptionally vulnerable to a predator like Dahmer.
Beyond the individuals, we see the families that are dealing with their loss. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and friends, all dealing with the morbid tragedy that has befallen their loved ones. Rarely has a series shown the impact of such a loss with the amount of depth that is put into Dahmer, helping to make a truly layered, insightful, and tragically sad tale.
Outside of Peters and Jenkins as the younger and elder Dahmers, the standout of this series is without a doubt Niecy Nash, who plays Dahmer’s neighbor, Glenda Cleveland, who called the police on the killer multiple times as she suspected he was up to no good from the beginning. Her pleas went unheard or dismissed, allowing Dahmer to take even more lives before his reign of terror was over. When he was finally captured, Cleveland was incredulous that it had been allowed to go on so long, and her journey becomes every bit as poignant as Dahmer and his victims.
Nash is known predominantly for her comedic role as Deputy Raineesha Williams in Reno 911!, as well as roles in shows like The Rookie, Claws, and Scream Queens. While she has always been a strong presence in her work up until Dahmer, nothing compares to the performance she gives as Cleveland. It’s a game-changing role for Nash, who shows that her acting chops go far beyond what she’s explored previously and makes the case that her phone should be ringing off the hook with roles at this very moment.
Cleveland experiences Dahmer’s crimes in a way that’s unlike the victims, their families, or the general public. She harbors immense guilt, something that’s so rarely explored in such a show, as her attempts to call Dahmer’s suspicious actions to light went unchecked. She is seen apologizing to family members of victims and calling out the unforgivable lack of action taken by law enforcement, which is shown to be nearly complicit in Dahmer’s crimes due to their absence of due diligence. It’s infuriating to watch.
At one point Nash meets with Reverend Jessie Jackson, who shows up after Dahmer is captured to push for accountability surrounding the killer’s crimes. It’s here that Nash shows Cleveland falling apart, with her own responsibility in the events feeling heavier than she can bear. Nash is utterly amazing, convincing, and powerful here, which continues as she meets with another pastor, seeking advice on how to move on with her life. Nash is central to the success of Dahmer and makes for one of the most memorable performances of 2022. Whether she wins a trophy for her efforts or not, Nash has established herself as an actress to be reckoned with (and certainly not to be underestimated).
Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is now streaming on Netflix.