By Kristine Pascual, Oct. 4, 2022
“Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” starring Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer and created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan, is unsettling to say the least. Those familiar with Murphy’s work such as “American Horror Story ” or “The Assassination of Gianni Versace,” would quickly realize that this show is very much a “Ryan Murphy ” show. Murphy is known to create and produce works of tan often disturbing and grotesque nature. “Monster” is nothing short of grotesque, continuing Murphy’s style.
The biopic contains ten episodes delving into the serial killer’s life and what might have driven him to commit such heinous crimes. Peters is a phenomenal actor and delivers a haunting performance.
The show is pieced together like a puzzle, switching back and forth between past and present, predominantly about Dahmer, but with bits and pieces sprinkled in about his victims and the people who knew him. The first half of the show dives into Dahmer’s family life and how he struggled with a mentally ill mother and an absent father. Later in the show, his father blames himself for the way that his son turned out, and viewers are left wondering if people are born evil, or if it is the way they were raised. Sitting through this show was a bit painful having previous knowledge of who Dahmer was and remembering that this did happen in real life, and that the victim’s families still live with this trauma today.
After six episodes, viewers finally get to focus on someone other than Dahmer — Tony Hughes, who was portrayed by Rodney Burford. Hughes was a kind young man who dreamed of becoming a model, but was held back due to being a gay, deaf Black man in the 90s. He moves into the same apartment complex as Dahmer and is soon lured in by him. This episode was especially difficult to watch, and I can only imagine how much harder it was on Hughes’ family.
The real star of the show would be Niecy Nash who plays Glenda Cleveland in the biopic. As the next-door neighbor of Dahmer, she tried many times to get the police officers to arrest Dahmer, yet they continuously failed her time after time. She quickly picked up on the nasty smell coming from his apartment and heard the chilling screams of his victims, calling the police on multiple occasions. Nash delivers a fantastic performance. However, the series has drawn some controversy due to its humanization of murder and cannibalism.
The problem with this series was the amount of focus and detail that went into Dahmer’s murders and cannibalism. Some viewers even go as far as to claim that this show was humanizing those horrible crimes. Yes, this show was about his life and tendencies, but even I felt myself squirming at some scenes wondering if certain scenes were necessary. There were a good number of scenes that really focused on how Dahmer cut up human meat and the way he stored their bodies around his apartment. There have also been so many other adaptations of Dahmer’s life through movies and documentaries, which is why the family members of his victims are outraged and felt that their trauma was being reintroduced into their lives. They said that Netflix never notified the families of this series and to watch the show.
Cousin of one of the victims, Eric Perry, questioned in a tweet “How many movies/shows/documentaries do we need?”
Another family member even spoke about a specific scene in the show, recreating her emotional outburst on Dahmer during the trial. She as well as the other victims’ families are understandably upset over the show.
Overall, this felt more like a horror show than anything else. It was interesting, but quite gruesome. The important takeaway is to remember and honor the victims and their families as they are forced to deal with the attention this show has brought them once again.
Feature image courtesy of Lauren Wong