My Friend Dahmer

"Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. This is the story before that story."

2017 1h 47m EN

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6.5

SOLID

★6.5TMDB · 665

HistoryDramaCrime

Synopsis

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Jeffrey Dahmer struggles with a difficult family life as a young boy. During his teenage years he slowly transforms, edging closer to the serial killer he was to become.

“Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. This is the story before that story.”

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Cast

Ross Lynch
Jeffrey Dahmer
Alex Wolff
John 'Derf' Backderf
Anne Heche
Joyce Dahmer
Dallas Roberts
Lionel Dahmer
Liam Koeth
Dave Dahmer
Nancy Telzerow
Carol Backderf
Tommy Nelson
Neil
Harrison Holzer
Mike

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Marc Meyers
Writers: Marc Meyers
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 7

ERA

Did you know

Released 9 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Marc Meyers, shot by Daniel Katz. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Andrew Hollander. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 7

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Jamie Kirkpatrick shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 7

CAST

Did you know

Ross Lynch and Alex Wolff and Anne Heche carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 7

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. This is the story before that story.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 7

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt2291540 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Marc Meyers directs. Daniel Katz behind the camera. Andrew Hollander scores. Jamie Kirkpatrick cuts. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Released 9 years ago.
2Directed by Marc Meyers, shot by Daniel Katz. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
3Original score by Andrew Hollander. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
4Editor Jamie Kirkpatrick shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
5Ross Lynch and Alex Wolff and Anne Heche carry the top of the cast.
6Marketing tagline: "Jeffrey Dahmer murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991. This is the story before that story.".
7IMDB entry: tt2291540 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
8Classified under 11 themes, including "high school", "1970s", "biography", "based on true story".

The technical file

Cinematography: Daniel Katz
Original score: Andrew Hollander
Editing: Jamie Kirkpatrick
Production design: Jennifer Klide
Costume design: Carla Shivener
Makeup / hair: Korrey Robinson
Sound: Coll Anderson
Runtime: 107 min · 1h 47m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Box office: $1,361,611
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: My Friend Dahmer (2017)

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Marc Meyers

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Community reviews

What people are saying

Stephen Campbell2019-04-18
★ 6/10
Tonally flawless, but narratively weak The killing was just a means to an end. That was the least satisfactory part. I didn't enjoy doing that. That's why I tried to create living zombies with uric acid and the drill, but it never worked. No, the killing wasn't the objective. I just wanted to have the person under my complete control, to do with as I wanted. It's not easy to say that, but that's what the motive was. - Jeffrey Dahmer; speaking to Stone Phillips; Dateline NBC (March 8, 1994) Taking place over the course of Jeffrey Dahmer's last year in high school, and culminating with the fateful meeting between Dahmer (Ross Lynch) and Steven Hicks (Dave Sorboro), writer/director Marc Meyers's My Friend Dahmer is based on the 2012 graphic novel by Derf Backderf (played in the film by Alex Wolff), who attended the same school as Dahmer, and formed a pseudo-friendship with him. The film is tonally brilliant, coming across like The Breakfast Club (1985) directed by David Fincher, perfectly capturing 80s tackiness. Narratively, however, it's extremely plodding, and could easily have been trimmed by 20 minutes. It's also difficult to see what Meyers was trying to achieve; other than a couple of brief moments, we're never given any real access to Dahmer's interiority, so he remains an enigma, always at arm's length (which could have been the point). But is Meyers asking us to feel sympathy for Dahmer because he had a difficult adolescence, came from a broken home, couldn't make friends in school; to quote that great line from Michael Mann's Manhunter (1986), my heart bleeds for him, as a child. Someone took a kid and manufactured a monster. At the same time, as an adult, he's irredeemable. He butchers whole families to pursue trivial fantasies. As an adult, someone should blow the sick fuck out of his socks. Or is this simply a character study (if we didn't know it was about Dahmer, it could be any number of examinations of high school awkwardness)? The lack of clarity regarding the film's theme is compounded by the scenes where it looks as if Dahmer is about to murder someone, only to stop at the last second. This is an especially strange way to generate tension, insofar as we already know his first murder was Hicks. Also, if the film is actually trying to say something of societal worth regarding serial killers, directionless youth, nature vs. nurture etc, trying to draw an audience into the narrative with the prospect of murder probably isn't the way to go about it. The film also fails to really get into the issues of Dahmer's sexuality, and his confusion and frustration about being gay. It's worth a look, and Lynch's performance is quite something, but if you're already familiar with Dahmer's story, you won't find much insight here.

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