Madison Meeks – Media Director

mvm7037@psu.edu

Photo Credit: Netflix

(Spoiler Warning)

“DAHMER – Monster: A Jeffrey Dahmer Story” is a limited series produced by Netflix and Ryan Murphy, the creator of “American Horror Story.” The series retells the sick, twisted, and terrifying story of notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Dahmer, during the years from 1978 to 1991, terrorized Milwaukee, killing 17 men and boys between the ages of 14 to 33. Released on Netflix, on September 21, controversy has followed the “Monster: A Jeffrey Dahmer Story” since it was released. 

Dahmer is played by Evan Peters, who has a terrifying resemblance to Jeffrey Dahmer himself. The series recalls not only the horrifying crimes that Dahmer committed between the years of 1978 to 1991 but the events that occurred before and after his acts. In an interview with “Netflix Queue,” the platform’s digital newspaper, Evan Peters said, “It’s called ‘The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,’ but it’s not just about him and his backstory. It’s the repercussions; it’s how society and our system failed to stop him multiple times because of racism and homophobia. Everybody gets their side of the story told.” Also According to “NBC News,” Peters said that Ryan Murphy told the cast and crew that “It would never be told from Dahmer’s point of view”. Even though the show was supposed to tell the story of Dahmer’s victims and not Dahmer himself, the limited series seems to be told from the point of view of Jeffrey Dahmer and to be his story. 

The limited series tells Dahmer’s story from when he was a kid through when he dies in prison. Although the series is supposed to focus on the lives of Dahmer’s victims, it focuses more on Dahmer himself than the lives that he took of 17 men and boys who were sadly victims of these horrible crimes. The series portrays a dramatized version of Dahmer’s childhood, his parent’s divorce, and shows how he and his father would go pick up roadkill and dissect animals in their basement when he was a child in the early episodes. The episodes also show parts of Dahmer’s killing in graphic detail, especially his first victim, who was only 18 at the time of his death. The release of the show upset the families of victims because Netflix never told them that they were making the series, did not tell them anything about the series before it was released and how the release of the series has retraumatized them. The Netflix limited series was told to be about the stories about Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims, but as viewers have noticed is not focusing on the victims but more focusing on the life and crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer. The only episodes of the show that focus on the victims are episode 6, which focuses on a victim of Dahmer, and episode 9, which focuses on the families of the victims and victims that had escaped Dahmer. The show should have focused more on the victims than the actual criminal himself.

Despite the controversy surrounding the series and the story being a story that does not need to be retold again, it intrigues the audience to see how Dahmer’s mindset worked and what would have made him do the terrible crimes that he did. The series is not as terribly made but needed to focus more on the victims’ lives and the horrible crime that Dahmer had put families through. “Monster: A Jeffrey Dahmer Story” is formatted exactly like another of Ryan Murphy’s series, FX’s “American Crime Story.” This limited series would have been better as another season of that show rather than its own project. “DAHMER –  Monster: A Jeffrey Dahmer Story” is a series that true crime fans and fans of FX’s “American Crime Story” should check out.