The recently released Netflix series “Mindhunter”
follows a team of FBI agents in the 1970’s as they embark on the early stages
of criminal profiling, traveling the country to interview serial killers about
their past history in an attempt to see what makes them tick. “My Friend
Dahmer” goes a step further, dramatizing the teen years of Jeffrey Dahmer, just
before he took a turn for the homicidal.
As played by
Ross Lynch, Dahmer is an isolated loner with a hangdog expression,
stoop-shouldered posture, and shuffling gait. He’s lonely, struggling with his
sexuality, and an unhappy home life due to his neglectful, constantly bickering
parents (Anne Heche and Dallas Roberts). He finds
happiness collecting roadkill, which he takes back to a little shack in the woods
to perform experiments on because he’s fascinated by what’s inside.
“My Friend
Dahmer” is based on the graphic novel memoir by Derf Backderf (played in the film by Alex Wolff), who briefly
formed a friendship with the soon-to-be-infamous killer during their senior
year of high school. Derf and his buddies adopt
Dahmer as their “mascot,” getting him to perform various pranks for their
amusement. Eager for any kind of acceptance, he does what the boys ask, until
they start to understand that he’s more damaged than they could have imagined.
It would
have been easy to turn this material into pure exploitation, but director Marc
Meyers aims for something possibly even more unsettling. He delivers an
empathetic character study, asking his audience to understand and find the
humanity in a man most people would call a monster.
This article appears in Dec 13-19, 2017.
