Jeffrey Dahmer | Nightmare Nostalgia

Give the gift of roadkill in acidic mason jars this Easter with a copy of My Friend Dahmer!

For the past 20+ years, we’ve encountered several films based on the nefarious lover of refrigerated human heads, Jeffrey Dahmer. While a personal favorite of mine, The Secret Life, stands as one of my favorite flicks based on the lunatic who murdered 17 (that we know of) men and boys between 1978- 1991 before his capture, My Friend Dahmer focuses on the psychopath’s teenage years.

And it’s fantastically brilliant with just the right amount of unsettling disturbance that serves as a precursor to the lunatic’s active years of murderous insanity.

Based on the acclaimed graphic novel by Derf Backderf, its screenplay landed a spot on the coveted ‘Black List’, ranking it as one of the best-unproduced screenplays (at the time) before becoming a hit movie. With a theatrical release in 2017, My Friend Dahmer grossed over $1,300,000 in select theaters. It played extensively on the festival circuit, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival and going on to play at LA Film Festival, Deauville Film Festival, American Film Festival. The film features an all-star cast that includes Emmy Nominee Anne Heche (Donnie Brasco), SAG Award winner Vincent Kartheiser (Mad Men), Former Disney star Ross Lynch (Austin & Ally), Alex Wolff (Patriot’s Day) and Dallas Roberts (3:10 To Yuma).

SYNOPSIS per the Press Release:

Jeff Dahmer (Lynch) is an awkward teenager struggling to make it through high school with a family life in ruins. He collects roadkill, fixates on a neighborhood jogger (Kartheiser), and copes with his unstable mother (Heche) and well-intentioned father (Roberts). He begins to act out at school, and his goofball antics win over a group of band-nerds who form The Dahmer Fan Club, headed by Derf Backderf (Wolff). But this camaraderie can’t mask his growing depravity. Approaching graduation, Jeff spirals further out of control, inching ever closer to madness.

Available for visual consumption April 10th, 2018 via Blu-Ray and DVD, you can pre-order your copy now through MVD Entertainment or Amazon by clicking the link below!

My Friend Dahmer

If you were of sound mind in 1993, you may recall a horrific little made for TV movie entitled The Secret Life of Jeffrey Dahmer. Or technically speaking, The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer.

Oh yes, we’re going to talk about this fuckery.

Frankly speaking, I’m not sure why this film isn’t talked about more often in horror circles. Visually the 1993 film looks pretty dated however, the movie that in my opinion, has most accurately depicted Dahmer’s perception of life and twisted state of mind, to this day holds up as THEE legit Dahmer movie out of the several that have popped up since the twisted killer’s arrest on July 22, 1991. And regarding gorehounds out there, it’s DEFINITELY the most brutal and by far the most unsettling to sit through. I’m not sure how I got away with watching this completely fucked up movie with my virgin 10-year-old eyes, but I most certainly did. Bless the golden age of HBO and the days when the boob tube was an acceptable babysitter for rugrats.

Directed by David Bowen and starring a convincible Carl Crew as the infamous Dahmer, The Secret Life is told from the killer’s point of view and laid out through the horrific 14 years of Dahmer’s life of murder and madness that resulted in the deaths of 17 young men and ultimately, leading up to his arrest. Crew (Dahmer) with those hauntingly calming voice-over monologues as a well-aware killer with an eternal fear of abandonment throughout the movie and ability to go from calm as a cucumber to unhinged is in my opinion, pretty underrated as Crew’s performance is quite the treat for fans of this type of film.

The Secret Life was released two years after Dahmer’s real-life arrest and one year prior to his death in prison, so the terrifying discovery of the acts from Dahmer was still fresh in the world’s mind. And the fact that the film played the no hold’s barred card with extremely violent sequences involving the murder of Dahmer’s victims, really set some folks off in the sensitivity department. Curious audiences who had followed the case knew to an extent, of the horrors Dahmer unleashed upon his prey, but I’m not so sure anyone was really prepared for the brutal savagery displayed on film that seemed like something out of a snuff flick but was in fact, reality of the final moments of the casualties of Dahmer. Bowen’s telling of the grisly murders and semi-humanizing Dahmer in a way to look deeper behind the monster didn’t sit too well with a lot of critics and viewers back in ’93 so the film seemed to drop off the face of the earth with the ending of the VHS era until a few years back when Intervision released a DVD that includes the original trailer, audio commentary with director Bowen, and a featurette with Carl Crew.

The Dahmer true tale of torture and terror is unsettling enough as it is and this movie goes balls deep right into it without adding any flair or big-budget fluff. And frankly, it works better that way. It feels like you’re watching something maybe you really shouldn’t be looking at. However, the story is told so well that behind the brutality of severed heads proudly on display in Dahmer’s fridge, are secondary elements in Bowen’s movie. Even so, it’s not for the queasy folks. And I wouldn’t suggest eating any beef stew during a viewing.

For those interested in revisiting or for first-time viewers, The Secret Life is available over on Amazon.