The Jeffery Dahmer Series Review: Life of a Serial Killer

The series goes back and forth between Dahmer’s rough childhood, the bond that accumulated due his father introducing him to the world of dissecting roadkill, and the saddening stories of his victims. During Dahmer’s childhood, there wasn’t an adult always present due to the pending divorce of his mother Joyce (Penelope Ann Miller) and Father Lionel (Richard Jenkins). During that time, he was left alone to fend with nothing but his thoughts that soon lead him to killing his first victim; his fascination with internal organs started to progress, leading to stronger compulsions and thus sparking the need to kill in particular men of color. Lionel attempted to put him in college as well as the Army which both ended in failure when he’s kicked out of both. Dahmer ends up getting his own apartment in a place located with mainly minorities. He would go out to clubs so that he can bring his victims back to his place to play out his ritualistic killing. Dahmer strived to relinquish the hunger for killing so that meant doing whatever it took to ensure that he gets what he needs, however it didn’t always go his way. Towards the end of the series, it is his incompetence that ultimately got him arrested for his heinous crimes. He was sentenced to 15 terms of life imprisonment and died due to severe head trauma inflicted by another inmate. 

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story doesn’t shy away from showing graphic content such as blood and body parts which gives it a sense of reality. Seeing certain difficult scenes make you feel the pain, fear, and other emotions that are picked up while watching the series. The tone of the series displays a gloomy atmosphere that induces a seriousness when watching, almost like a warning that something dark is to come. As you continue to watch it is obvious that race and sexuality play major roles in the production of this series. Minorites and in particular homosexuals are targets which leads to low income beaten down neighborhoods being emphasized. In the story, race and sexuality is one of the primary reasons as to why Dahmer wasn’t caught earlier; he was a gay white man, and the crimes took place in a black neighborhood which police didn’t care much for. All in all, the environment portrays a great deal of negligence towards the people and the environment.

When first clicking play on the show, you already feel a negative energy radiating from the film. Off the bat everything is dark which sets the tone for what it would entail. I catch myself at times praying that the unspeakable predictions in my head wouldn’t come to life in the show because the episodes contained the kind of gut-churning scenes that you had to look away from. It was immensely detailed in a way that is disturbing and overwhelming for people that don’t do well with the sight of blood. Watching this brought me not only the emotion of anxiety but disappointment.  Being a minority in America, it made me feel uneasy knowing someone could be capable of doing such actions due to America’s broken system of disregarding people like me. 

Overall, the series captured and properly enacted all the shock filled horrors that occurred during Jeffery Dahmer’s spree killings. The producer and the actors do a good job of keeping the characters essence and really embodying the characters of the roles that they played in the story. Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story does the best job at really going into detail about who Jeffery Dahmer is and the impact he had on this world compared to previous productions made about him. If I were someone looking to get the full story on this notorious serial killer, I would definitely take this show into consideration.