I believe Netflix did an excellent job with this mini-series, and I've watched many about other American serial killers over the years. I've actually purposely avoided watching documentaries about Dahmer, exactly because what I remembered about his particular crimes seemed more "humanly unimaginable" than those of most other notorious serial killers. But Netflix, IMO, is becoming a pretty good maker of mini-series like this, from the ones I've seen and then researched the truth of--so, I decided to give it a shot.
SPOILERS AHEAD
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First, they started with his last crime and capture, which was the first that we, the public, heard about him. The rest of the movie was spent offering explanations for how and why he did what he did. Most people watching likely already knew about the cannibalism and that he preyed on a particular type of person. So, nothing was "given away" much in the way they began the series.
But, then the rest of the episodes began to unfold the stories of other key people in his life, including the neighbor who tried to get the police's attention, repeatedly, and what she was experiencing emotionally because of that. And, little, by little, the series unfolds things about Dahmer's life that make us wonder if it was nature, nurture, opportunistic circumstances, pure evil, or a combination of all of them, that formed Dahmer into the killer he became.
After finishing the series last night, I felt the most frightening thing of all is what we see the dad going through--what, if anything, could the dad have done differently, as a parent, so that Dahmer would have become a different person? And thinking about how any of us would react if we'd been in his shoes, once he found out about Dahmer's crimes, during the trial, and then once his son was dead.
Personally, I've thought that a lot, over the years of watching these documentaries and seeing news about crimes as they happened. HOW could the families of the Amish kids killed in that schoolhouse years ago, be forgiving toward the mom of their children's killer? That too seems humanly impossible, but they were, as the nation watched. How DOES a parent feel, when their child does something so, so horrendous? What kind of guilt does that parent carry? I pray none of us reading this ever find out....
Anyway, IMO, Netflix did a great job of letting us see Dahmer himself as the totally unfathomable monster he was, but it also did a great job of showing us what some of the victims, the parents of the victims, the parents of Dahmer, and the neighbor who kept telling the police, over and over, that something was wrong, felt and experienced, especially in the aftermath.
From what I've read on IMDB so far, the series seems to have been pretty factual about most of the details, and I didn't see it as coming from any kind of particular "angle" because it, IMO, portrayed the victims and their families & friends, the witness and her family, and Dahmer's family in similar ways--letting us see and feel the HURT all these people went through.
It also was not nearly as gory or descriptive as it could have been, and which many other actual documentaries (not dramatized mini-series) usually are. So, I came away with far LESS visuals in my head than I feared I would--and that is a very good thing. I believe they kept the visuals and details down to a minimum, again IMO, compared to what they COULD have shown and described, and I'm very thankful for that.
They also intentionally determined NOT to show the situation from Dahmer's own point of view (according to IMDB), because they did not want the audience to have sympathy for him. And, they left some of the issues regarding his spiritual situation "open" during the last episode. I had no clue that Dahmer got baptized in prison, before he was killed. I checked online, and this was true--it happened in May, 1994 and an article (or more) was written about it at the time. There was a LOT of Christianity displayed, and actually in a fairly good light, in this documentary--again, surprising given the bent of stuff these days.
I saw a review on IMDB where the writer calls this series "part Civil Rights movie" and I actually disagree. I had no clue that Jesse Jackson got involved early on, when the story broke, so when he appeared on the scene I was set for the series to take some sort of angle about that, not to mention the LGBT angle it could have taken. But, it did neither, IMO--it pretty much simply showed us what happened and who was preyed upon, and Jeff's sexual orientation, but I didn't detect any big "statement" about any of that, that didn't seem appropriate for the time and situation.
So, what I'm trying to say is, this was absolutely one of the worst serial killer cases we know of, in American history, but I have to give Netflix a lot of credit for, IMO, presenting & adapting the story as a bio-drama in a way that showed wise restraint, regarding WHAT they could have shown, HOW they could have visually presented it, and HOW they treated some pretty currently-hot topics, in a way that was respectful of the time in which this story takes place. Dahmer himself wasn't used to drive our emotions, his killings certainly drove our emotions, but so did the way the victims, their families, the witness and her family, and even Dahmer's own family, were portrayed.
And it gave me, for one, a lot to ponder after watching the last episode, that I never imagined I would be pondering, regarding this particular serial killer situation. It made me walk away with empathy, not just sympathy, for every major character, except for Dahmer himself, and the 2 cops who did not, IMO, get the "reward" they deserved....
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