Now that I have that bothersome (though necessary) caveat out of the way, I can proceed with reviewing My Friend Dahmer, a 2017 independent film that explores the teenage years of serial killer and cannibal Jeffery Dahmer, ending just prior to his first murder at the ripe old age of 18.
My Friend Dahmer is based on a 2012 graphic novel by artist Derf Backderf, who attended high-school with Dahmer in the late 1970s. During their school days, Derf, along with a group of friends, established the "Dahmer Fan Club," inspired by the fake seizures Jeff used to pull in class and in public. Dahmer was their weird mascot, the boy who got a laugh but never connected with anyone. To see Derf's blog about his memories of Dahmer and his experiences on the set of the film, follow this link.
Writer/Director Marc Meyers treats his source material with respect, presenting an accurate film adaptation that is both haunting and poignant. At the heart of his film is the troubling question: What makes a killer? In Jeffery Dahmer's case, the answers are not easy to pinpoint. We'd like to think of serial killers as fully-formed maniacs, born out of some hellish vacuum. It's not comfortable to imagine these people as they were as children. It humanizes them too much.
What sets My Friend Dahmer apart from other biographical films about serial killers, is the uncomfortable relatability of its protagonist. In many ways, Dahmer had a typical suburban upbringing of the time. Sure, his mother and father argued a lot, and his mother suffered from various mood issues, but there seems to be little there that would induce a young man to murder and dismember other young men.
Director Meyers doesn't keep Jeff at a distance from the audience. While most films with similar subject matter present their killers with a psychotic gleam in the eye and creepy demeanor, My Friend Dahmer provides us with no such distancing techniques. We the audience have nothing to hide behind--no comforting barrier from which to crouch and whisper, "oh, thank God I'm not a creep like that!".
The Dahmer of the film is no frothing, twitchy eyed, stalker, but rather an unassuming highschooler. He is less of a social outcast than he is simply disassociated from the world around him. He spends his evenings hunting for roadkill that he can take home to his special shed and dissolve in jars of acid. He isn't necessarily shy about his bizarre hobby. When two peers express curiosity about Jeff's roadkill collecting, he takes them back to the shed and provides a demonstration. They express great disgust, proclaiming "You're such a freak Dahmer!" as they flee the little shack of horrors.
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| "The boy who didn't belong." Jeff's face was censored from the highschool yearbook. |
The real Dahmer took an interest early on in animals and bones. His father, Lionel Dahmer, a chemist, jumped at the opportunity to encourage his son's curiosity. He built him the shed out in the woods behind their home and instructed him on how to remove the skin from deceased animals in order to study the skeletal structures. In the film, when Jeff persists with the hobby instead of going out and finding friends, Lionel dismantles the shed and demands that his teenage son take more of an interest in social life.
Meyers' screenplay is brilliant in its reserve. Here we find no blood splatters or scenes of gory, gratuitous violence. Rather we see Jeff as his peer group saw him at the time--quiet and probably depressed. While the film takes place in the year before Jeff's first killing, it nonetheless could have depicted the graphic fantasies that he'd been having since age 14. As it is in the film, we see only one brief scene where Jeff imagines lying down on a bed with a corpse.
The film also has touches of humor; no simple task to pull off when dealing with such weighty themes. When the local stoner offers to sell Jeff the drug of his choice, he asks, "what do you do?" Jeff responds with, "I collect roadkill, I'm trying to quit." Moments like these offer a brief respite amidst the pervasive gloom of the story.
The film also has touches of humor; no simple task to pull off when dealing with such weighty themes. When the local stoner offers to sell Jeff the drug of his choice, he asks, "what do you do?" Jeff responds with, "I collect roadkill, I'm trying to quit." Moments like these offer a brief respite amidst the pervasive gloom of the story.
By keeping his film understated, Meyer's heightens its tension. The film throbs with the unspoken and terrible truth of what Jeff is thinking and what he is destined to become. Actor Ross Lynch, a former Disney Channel star cast against type, plays Jeff with a deliberate subtlety that leaves a definite impression. He looks eerily like the real Jeff. Walking with an odd, hunched over gait, Lynch's Dahmer ambles down the halls of his school, and stalks the county roads, all with the same muted, dull expression. Only occasionally and briefly, does Lynch allow us to see the deep pain behind Jeff's eyes. The theme of disassociation is an important one to the film, and the element that most struck home with me.
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| Actor Ross Lynch as Dahmer on the left. The real Jeff on the right. |
Upon reaching puberty, the real Dahmer realized he was gay, but also began to be plagued with violent sexual fantasies involving necrophilia and dismemberment. The teenage Jeff began drinking heavily, presumably to dull these terrible thoughts. His friend Derf recalls Jeff stumbling down the corridors of the school and showing up to class heavily inebriated. The adults pretended not to notice and did nothing. Consequently, Jeff never received the help he needed. One hopes that today, a kid like Dahmer would be noticed and given treatment. But in the wake of yet another school shooting, it seems our society remains largely blind to the troubled among us.
Visually, My Friend Dahmer is soaked in atmosphere. I noticed early on in the film that Dahmer's house, shed, and the roads he trudges down, seemed charged with a weight that belied typical film sets and locations. Sure enough, upon looking it up, I discovered that the film was shot on location in Bath, Ohio, where Dahmer spent his childhood and teenage years. The house featured in the film was Dahmer's real family home, in which he committed his first murder. The dissecting shed in the film is a replica built over the spot of the original. And the roads seen in the film are the very roads the real Jeff haunted as a teen.
Visually, My Friend Dahmer is soaked in atmosphere. I noticed early on in the film that Dahmer's house, shed, and the roads he trudges down, seemed charged with a weight that belied typical film sets and locations. Sure enough, upon looking it up, I discovered that the film was shot on location in Bath, Ohio, where Dahmer spent his childhood and teenage years. The house featured in the film was Dahmer's real family home, in which he committed his first murder. The dissecting shed in the film is a replica built over the spot of the original. And the roads seen in the film are the very roads the real Jeff haunted as a teen.
Doesn't get more authentic than that!
If you're at all interested in True Crime, make sure to check out My Friend Dahmer. It is a quiet but powerful film with something to say.
*Jeffery Dahmer would go on to murder 17 young men before being apprehended in 1990. In 1994, Jeff was attacked and beaten to death by a fellow prison inmate.
