So I watched this when it premiered in 2022. Dahmer on Netflix was and is, in my opinion, one of the best-produced dramatizations of true crime events. In every way.
This first installment in what became a benchmark performance for Evan Peters, Episode One opens on the neighbor of Dahmer, hearing what appears to be power-tools and bone-crushing late at night. Niecy Nash as Glenda Cleveland is, in fact, heart-stoppingly enigmatic in this role.
The production value? Incredibly high. I enjoyed every minute of every performance, was able to suspend my disbelief for the entire watch-through, and even re-watched in order to write this post. I highly recommend it for those with a stronger stomach.
Dahmer is frightfully real in this portrayal, which not only takes a look at his extremely troubled childhood and young adulthood involving his parents' troubles, extended family drama, and lack of support, but ALSO looks into the psychology of the killer, and portrays the world around Dahmer, the shock, and fear rippling through Milwaukee in the '80's incredibly well. This series is NOT for chumps. You won't be able to eat while watching and you won't want to anyways. A proper scare? Absolutely. But we can't forget the basis of this phenomenal production.
The story, at least as far as this production goes, starts at the end. Dahmer's final victim, who escaped with his life, Tracey Edwards, portrayed by Shaun J. Brown, manages to flag down police and catch Dahmer before he can manipulate, lie, and drug more innocents into his sick fantasy world.
In reality, Dahmer, was fucked up, and was, also, incredibly dumb. Like, wickedly dumb. Sadly, because he was a white man who was seemingly soft-spoken, and a social outcast on many, MANY levels, he got away with a lot. Like, actually way too much. At one point, police officers weren't really interested in getting involved with a (way too) young man, nonverbal with blood on his head and roaming naked, just because Dahmer said he was his boyfriend. That victim was a minor (14 year old Konerak Sinthasomphone), with a hole drilled in his head that Dahmer was pouring acid into in order to try to create a zombie.
Yes, you did read that correctly.
"The killing was a means to an end. That was the least satisfactory part. I didn't enjoy doing that. That's why I tried to create living zombies with uric acid in the drill [to the head], but it never worked. No, the killing was not the objective. I just wanted to have the person under my complete control, not having to consider their wishes, being able to keep them there as long as I wanted." - Wiki
Dahmer, throughout his life, was essentially killing and dismembering, in one way or another, something that was once living or was alive.
His father, Lionel (portrayed by Richard Jenkins in this series, bravo by the way), takes a lot of blame to heart over this. In a few episodes of Dahmer, Lionel is shown trying to encourage actual interest in taxidermy and maybe biology and science, but really, Dahmer was masturbating to the thought of the dead bodies of the roadkill in his private time.
“It was a level of obliviousness, or perhaps denial, that was scarcely imaginable, and yet it was real. It was as if I had locked my son in a soundproofed booth, then drawn the curtains so that I could neither hear nor see what he had become.” - Lionel Dahmer
Over the years, Dahmer didn't just scoop roadkill and burn the flesh off of the bones with acid. He started quite young with people. Dahmer was 18 when he strangled and dismembered Steven Hicks in 1978.
Then, Dahmer held off for nine years, all during which he joined and was discharged from the Army. He then moved from Ohio with his father to Wisconsin with his Grandmother. Was caught for public indecency and fined in '82, and then again for something similar in '86. What a guy.
Not long after this, he could no longer hold back from what he had been dreaming of - re-creating what he did to Steven Hicks all those years ago.
Sure enough, Dahmer got right to work:
Steven Tuomi
Jamie Doxtator
Richard Guerrero
Anthony Sears
Ricky Beeks
Eddie Smith
Ernest Miller
David Thomas
Curtis Straughter
Errol Lindsey
Anthony Hughes
Konerak Sinthasomphone
Matt Turner
Jeremiah Weinberger
Oliver Lacy
Joseph Bradehoft
Each victim has a story. Read them here.
Not to mention Keison Sinthasomphone (yes, the other kid's brother), whom he molested and also managed to get away with his life like Tracey Edwards.
Not to mention every family member. Every parent of every child. Every sibling, loved one, and friend.
The amount of hurt here, that he caused, over thirteen years of terror reigning over the LGBTQ+ and minority communities of Milwaukee.
"Notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer shocked the world when he was arrested in 1991, as much for the heinous crimes he committed against his victims, as for the fact that he killed 17 men and boys over more than 13 years without capture." - Biography
And every episode I've watched of this series just reminds me how, sure, sometimes people have bad childhoods and mental issues.
But not every person does what Dahmer did. Not every person with a bad childhood and shitty parents and weird formative years decides to kill and kill and kill and kill.
And then not only to kill but to go beyond that. To somehow rationalize dismemberment and necrophilia. To somehow derive pleasure from what can only be described as evil. A mortal sin and beyond that, vile, deplorable, and really very confusing. Just unimaginable mental gymnastics with this one.
And children. Innocent children. Innocent teenagers. Innocent men.
I don't care who they were or what they did, but I DO care to mention that what Dahmer did TO THEM is undeserved in every way.
In the end, Tracey Edwards really did save the world. Or at least the gay and black community in Milwaukee. And that's enough.
Dahmer not only went straight to jail but didn't last too long in there either.
Sentenced to 16 Consecutive Life Sentences.
Got beat to death and murdered in '94 while on work duty.
Which he absolutely deserved.
Timeline Link: Here.
-B
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