TV: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

She’s a damn good actress but ugh her voice is like nails on a chalkboard

She was the highlight of the series for me. The show is otherwise pretty bland given the extremism of the case and character.

what's also annoying is when you learn that his actual neighbor was not the one who phoned the police, and actually was relatively unaware of what was going on. The real Glenda Cleveland who called lived in the vicinity and did get on the police for releasing the underage boy back to him, but everything else was fabricated. It was his landlord who got on him about the smell, in the show they made it same like he was fine letting it slide


Same with his dad showing him how to chop up roadkill, complete fabrication. Those are huge details which then really is like, why tf did you even make it. At least it's how it made me feel

I didn't know much about Dahmer except that he ate human flesh. I watched this - I don't really know why cause I don't really care about "true" fiction - read this thread and your post made me go watch that other Netflix show Conversations With A Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes. I've always been of the position that we should never read representation as direct reflection of reality, but you're right, here they take liberties that go beyond adaptation and that denaturalize what happened to the point of making it annoying. Some of it, like having Dahmer refuse to plead insanity (when he actually did) is really annoying cause in trying to reinforce the show's discourse on inequity, it really diminishes its impact.

Fun fact, I now see that my two favorite episodes were directed by Paris Barclay (and I just started watching his The Watcher series), and Gregg Araki, who at some point was kind of a legend of independent cinema.

 

[Babe Ruth]

evan peters killed it (though he just did his best Joe Pera impression). liked the background theme/music a lot

I thought the whole series was well cast.. I appreciated how they covered/depicted as many people as they could, who were harmed by Dahmer. Victims' families, Dahmer's neighbors, his parents & grandmother, etc. I felt the supporting cast was strong.
My only real complaint was the depiction of Dahmer's killing.. the dialog was really contrived, but..

This is a sidebar, but I find there's a blind spot in the analysis of Dahmer. That it is accepted at face value, he didn't murder anyone between '78-87. To me it defies common sense that Dahmer took 9+ year hiatus. Especially since it has been documented now, that Dahmer "found" a dead body in 1981, behind his place of employment in Florida. Kinda wish some of these documentary & research resources would be devoted to solving potential '80s Dahmer cold cases.. who knows.

 

[PK Cronin]

I thought the whole series was well cast.. I appreciated how they covered/depicted as many people as they could, who were harmed by Dahmer. Victims' families, Dahmer's neighbors, his parents & grandmother, etc. I felt the supporting cast was strong.
My only real complaint was the depiction of Dahmer's killing.. the dialog was really contrived, but..

This is a sidebar, but I find there's a blind spot in the analysis of Dahmer. That it is accepted at face value, he didn't murder anyone between '78-87. To me it defies common sense that Dahmer took 9+ year hiatus. Especially since it has been documented now, that Dahmer "found" a dead body in 1981, behind his place of employment in Florida. Kinda wish some of these documentary & research resources would be devoted to solving potential '80s Dahmer cold cases.. who knows.

I'm by no means an expert on Dahmer or serial killers in general but I believe there's some recent research that suggests there are far more people who can just stop killing than was previously thought to be the case. There's a specific type of person that has the inability to control those impulses (and Dahmer might be one of those) but there are several serial killers who have stopped for a period of time.

Here's an article briefly discussing it: Why Do Serial Killers Take Breaks, and Do They Ever Stop Killing?

 

[Babe Ruth]

I'm by no means an expert on Dahmer or serial killers in general but I believe there's some recent research that suggests there are far more people who can just stop killing than was previously thought to be the case. There's a specific type of person that has the inability to control those impulses (and Dahmer might be one of those) but there are several serial killers who have stopped for a period of time.

Here's an article briefly discussing it: Why Do Serial Killers Take Breaks, and Do They Ever Stop Killing?

I think in some cases, serial killers do take breaks, due to various reasons and/or pressures. But in the specific case of Dahmer, I think there is compelling circumstantial evidence that he did not take a 9+ year break.
Dahmer's roommate in the Army (Capshaw) has stated Dahmer returned to the barracks on numerous occasions, with blood all over his clothes.. Dahmer "found" a dead body behind his place of employment in 1981. There's a copy of that police report in the book 'Frustrated Witness!', which is kind of a wild piece of true crime history now.

The Dahmer case is unique in my view, because, so many times thru the Dahmer tragedy, Dahmer's word was taken as true. There has been a lot of renewed attention on Dahmer over the last 5 years or so.. but not much new scrutiny on his accepted narrative. To Chris Cuomo's credit, ABC Primetime did a report about 15 years ago on the dead man Dahmer "found". It was one of the few looks at Dahmer's missing years..
Anyways, forgive me for the long post. I just feel that Dahmer's hiatus could use a good second look.. It's disappointing, that because Dahmer says he didn't kill for 9 years.. most investigators (of all kinds) accepted that uncritically. Tho in their defense, with the passage of time, and the way Dahmer obliterated bodies, it would be a daunting job..

 

[PK Cronin]

I think in some cases, serial killers do take breaks, due to various reasons and/or pressures. But in the specific case of Dahmer, I think there is compelling circumstantial evidence that he did not take a 9+ year break.
Dahmer's roommate in the Army (Capshaw) has stated Dahmer returned to the barracks on numerous occasions, with blood all over his clothes.. Dahmer "found" a dead body behind his place of employment in 1981. There's a copy of that police report in the book 'Frustrated Witness!', which is kind of a wild piece of true crime history now.

The Dahmer case is unique in my view, because, so many times thru the Dahmer tragedy, Dahmer's word was taken as true. There has been a lot of renewed attention on Dahmer over the last 5 years or so.. but not much new scrutiny on his accepted narrative. To Chris Cuomo's credit, ABC Primetime did a report about 15 years ago on the dead man Dahmer "found". It was one of the few looks at Dahmer's missing years..
Anyways, forgive me for the long post. I just feel that Dahmer's hiatus could use a good second look.. It's disappointing, that because Dahmer says he didn't kill for 9 years.. most investigators (of all kinds) accepted that uncritically. Tho in their defense, with the passage of time, and the way Dahmer obliterated bodies, it would be a daunting job..

I think it's really interesting and I hadn't heard/read that about Dahmer (again, not an expert but I've poked around some articles here and there over the years). It's pretty crazy the amount of times people take the word of depraved criminals for their motives or other details, but I suppose it's simply because it's near impossible to get that information in any other way or it's too daunting as you said.

For John Wayne Gacy I remember there being a lot of hesitancy to investigate the potential alternate locations where he may have hid bodies and I'm not sure why that happens so much. Maybe it's something simple like it makes the police departments look bad.