The new  Netflix true crime analogy titled “Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story” was released September 2022 on Netflix. The documentary of Jeffery Dahmer, a notorious serial killer features Evan Peters as Dahmer.

Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer and sex offender known as the Milwaukee Cannibal, who committed the murder and dismemberment of 17 men and boys between 1978-1991. He was convicted of life imprisonment in 1992, and was murdered in prison two years later in 1994.

The ten episode series tells the this horrific crime specifically through the stories of his victims. The series also focuses on the length that Dahmer’s crimes were ignored or pushed to the side because he targeted African-American men.

Netflix’s recent edition to its line-up is, “Monster: the Jeffrey Dahmer Story”  starring Evan Peters, Niecy Nash, Richard Jenkins, Molly Ringswald, and Michael Learned. Niecey Nash is known for her role as a deputy in the show “Reno 911!” Molly Ringswald starred in the 1984 romance “Sixteen Candles,” and the most commonly known actor: Evan Peters, has played, literally, any role within in the horror genre.

The show “Dahmer” is under the thriller genre as well as a true-crime series.

the series, “Dahmer” has gotten a lot of backlash for not telling the family of the victims that another   documentary,  tagged as LGBTQ at first would be created. The production team series was unique in that it did not compare with the other Dahmer documentaries. Instead of writing a documentary through Dahmer’s eyes, and saying how much of a monster he was. This series focused on the victims’ side of the story. For over a decade, 17 men and boys were targeted and murdered. This series goes further and even illustrates how the evidence and warning signs related to Jeffrey Dahmer were pushed to the side because he mainly targeted African American men.

Overall, the show was extremely well-cast. Evan Peters already has a good start since in every directed media he is in, it is amazing how he takes his role to heart. He was afraid that he wouldn’t fit the role of the killer, and even told Netflix, that he was very scared about all of the things that Dahmer did, and diving into and trying to commit to playing the role of Dahmer would be one of the hardest things he’s done because he wanted authenticity. Along with Nicey Nash who was able to transcend all the emotions through a television screen with her facial expressions, voice, body movements and language were spot on.

The music and cinematography definitely brought the show to life. In the scenes where Dahmer was in a bar, a song would start playing, or when they were getting to a scene with intensity, it would start playing too. The songs, from the 1980s really portrayed this era in Milwaukee. The cinematography was amazing too. The lighting for the moody scenes were dimmed which reflected the overall emotion of the scene and the way the actors portrayed their characters in these scenes  also added to the intensity of the cinematography.

Since the series ended, I thought that the episodes was well done. At times, it was gross to watch at times, but that’s expected. I liked how it was centered around the victims more than on Dahmer. I liked how it even went into depth regarding his childhood, especially the scenes that focused on his taxidermy hobby, his early alcoholism, and the the tadpole story from elementary school.

Another favorite feature is that the series didn’t just talk about when Dahmer started killing, but also incorporated his mother who had mental issues which exposed Dahmer to developmental toxicity. Bringing the focus on the parents on parents also revealed additional insights into Dahmer. One point that did bother me is that throughout the series  Dahmer wears his glasses, but during his real life trial, Dahmer refused to wear his glasses noting that he did not want to look the victims’ families in their eyes. However, this supposedly guilt does not mitigate the monster that this man was and the series does a good job capturing this part of Dahmer.