His painful closeted homosexuality and rapidly deteriorating mental state never seem one note or contrived. His portrayal of Jeff never devolves into camp or turgidity, the way many other serial killer biopics have. Meyers apparently wanted to dial up the cringe factor to the point where it became downright sinister, and he definitely succeeds.Įven the most innocuous moments carry with them an ever present sense of dread, which is a credit to the understated but effective performance of Ross Lynch as Dahmer. And I guess that's an attribute when all is said and done. All of his actions are imbued with a devastating sense of foreboding that I personally found to be borderline unbearable at times. In fact, the movie's strength is basically drawn from not what it actually depicts, but the knowledge the viewer has of what Dahmer would become. It chronicles his brief but impactful acquaintance with John Backderf (the creator of the graphic novel) and his friends, who hung out together and goofed around in ways that were certainly odd, but not beyond the pale when it came to the behavioral tendencies of cringey teenage boys in the late 1970's. My Friend Dahmer, directed by Marc Meyers and based off of the 2002 graphic novel of the same name, follows infamous sex killer Jeffrey Dahmer's formative years (specifically his time as a senior in high school) where he essentially passed the point of no return as far as his proclivity for deranged and sadistic sexual violence was concerned.

Now yes serial killer biopics aren't new, and there certainly are older movies that fit this critieria (the cult classics Willard and Martin come to mind), but it seems like this kind of 'square peg + round hole = bloodshed' material has been picking up steam in these recent years.* I don't know if 'cringe horror' is a term, but along with Split and Creep it seems like we're witnessing the emergence of a burgeoning genre comprised of films centered around deeply flawed, awkward, and dangerous characters.

My friend dahmer movie october