With profound insight, what emerges is a Jeffrey Dahmer that few ever really knew, and readers will never forget. In My Friend Dahmer, a haunting and original graphic novel, writer-artist Backderf creates a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of a disturbed young man struggling against the morbid urges emanating from the deep recesses of his psyche-a shy kid, a teenage alcoholic, and a goofball who never quite fit in with his classmates. To Derf Backderf, Dahmer was a much more complex figure: a high school friend with whom he had shared classrooms, hallways, and car rides. To the public, Dahmer was a monster who committed unthinkable atrocities. In 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer-the most notorious serial killer since Jack the Ripper-seared himself into the American consciousness. Club, comiXology, Boing Boing, Publishers Weekly, MTV Geek, and more! Named a BEST OF 2012 by Time, The Village Voice, A.V. Backderf is quite skilled in using comics to tell this tale of a truly weird and sinister 1970s adolescent world.” -R. Marc Meyers | Ross Lynch, Anne Heche, Alex Wolff, Dallas Roberts and Vincent Kartheiser.“A well-told, powerful story. The captions at the end explain all that but, sadly, we’ve worked it out for ourselves.īiography, drama | UK, 1 June (2018) | Altitude Distribution | Dir. Yet, despite its unconventional approach, My Friend Dahmer, concludes in the most predictable way possible, involving the young man that became Jeffrey’s first victim. We just have to rely on Derff and Meyers being truthful. There’s also a continual, niggling question: how much of it is actually true? Just like the reasons for Dahmer becoming a serial killer, it’s never really explained, making it a frustrating yet fascinating watch. Yet the movie still holds your interest, primarily because it comes from such an unusual and specific viewpoint, that of somebody who knew Dahmer as a teenager. We know he didn’t, but it does mean there’s a piece of jigsaw missing, both in him and the film, and we never get a truly satisfying answer. He also admits to an interest in biology, so he could have become a scientist of some sort. Yet his unofficial lab, with roadkill in jars of acid, doesn’t necessarily point to him becoming a killer. His fascination with dead creatures – he eventually starts killing them himself instead of scooping up roadkill – follows the conventional theory that serial killers often indulge in animal cruelty as a form of practice, before turning to larger prey. The breakdown of his parents’ marriage is the primary one but that, on its own, simply isn’t enough. Meyers offers several reasons for Dahmer becoming a serial killer. This is also the father that helped fuel the teenager’s fascination with dead animals and then destroys it, ordering him to make some friends at school. They’re carbon copies of each other – the round shoulders, the glasses, the facial expressions. Perhaps the most unsettling scene is when he sits next to his father Lionel (Dallas Roberts). Ross Lynch is more than up to playing the title role, even in the moments when he overdoes that odd gait and posture, and that sense of Dahmer’s twisted and dark future is always there. While his hair, glasses and floral shirts are right for the 70s, his face and posture mark him out: the sloped, rounded shoulders, the lurching walk, the blank stare and discontented mouth. As soon as you clap eyes on him, he stands out as a misfit. In the main, the film is closer to something from the high school genre, with any horror lurking underneath the surface and relying on Dahmer’s later notoriety. Meanwhile, his home life isn’t much better: his mother’s (Anne Heche) mental health is deteriorating and his parents are constantly at odds, leaving him free to indulge in examining the insides of dead animals – and to become fascinated by the local doctor whose daily run takes him past the family home. Except, of course, for his “friends”: it’s all purely for their entertainment so they think it’s hilarious. Until he’s encouraged by three so-called friends to pretend to have episodes in public – at school, in the local mall – which alarm and frighten anybody witnessing them. His obsession with dead animals and a combination of a generally sulky demeanour and strange antics makes him an object of derision. This is not your usual serial killer bio-pic, concentrating instead on the young Jeffrey’s final year at high school. Not the sort of person you’d want to be friends with, then, but the title of Marc Meyers’ My Friend Dahmer is lifted straight from the graphic novel by Derf Backderf, one of Dahmer’s contemporaries at high school. Jeffrey Dahmer was one of the most notorious serial killers in America, responsible for killing 17 men and boys between 19, with some of his later murders involving a good deal more. If the name Dahmer isn’t ringing any bells, a cursory internet search will put that right.
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