Dahmer – The Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Rating: Goes out of its way to be unwatchable

A true crime drama based on the stomach-turning exploits of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, you’ll never be able to enjoy watching it. But Ryan Murphy‘s Dahmer – The Monster: The Story of Jeffrey Dahmer (Netflix) leans so heavily toward the macabre — Dahmer would kill, cannibalize and dismember his victims in his Milwaukee apartment — that you’ll feel your gag reflex kick in within minutes. It is an unflinching chronicle of unspeakable evil, and seems to have set itself the challenge of becoming completely unwatchable.

Whether he’s dissecting the OJ Simpson trial American Crime Story or a celebration of queer culture in 1980s New York City with The pose, Murphy has long been obsessed with the unexplored folds of the American psyche. Yet it’s hard to see the value of delving into the agony and ecstasy of Jeffrey Dahmer (played here by Mare of Eastown’s Evan Peters), a damaged man who channeled his fantasies into crimes too horrific to contemplate.

Netflix goes to great lengths not to glamorize Dahmer while keeping the suffering and humanity of his victims in the spotlight. This is admirable, but as a drama it translates into a carnival of horror.

“The smell is worse than ever,” complains Dahmer’s neighbor after he is seen cleaning a bloody knife in the opening scene. In a later flashback to his unhappy childhood, he delves into roadkill (his stepmother is portrayed by 1980s teen icon Molly Ringwald, his father by TV veteran Richard Jenkins). Even the title, with its unnecessary repetition of Dahmer, gives off an uneasy atmosphere.

If the monster has a saving grace, it’s Peters in the title role. A creepy nerd in the tradition of Psycho’s Norman Bates, his Dahmer is chillingly unbearable. This remains even when, in the first episode, his latest potential victim (Shaun Brown) escapes and drags the police back to Dahmer’s apartment.

“Just fun and games … some gay stuff,” “Jeff” explains to the officers as the victim recalls how Dahmer handcuffed him and held a knife to his throat. He retreats until one of the officers notices Polaroids of dismembered bodies on his nightstand.

Murphy is not the first modern figure in film and television to cultivate a fascination with serial killers. He was played by Zac Efron Ted Bundy in 2019; a year later, David Tennant slipped into mind Dennis Nielsen for ITV.

Let’s hope this isn’t a trend, because attempts to bring these instances to the screen always end up somewhere between boring and bleak. That’s certainly the case with The Monster , a competent and serious character study that goes to great lengths to make the viewer’s insides tingle and skin crawl.