Review of My Friend Dahmer (2017) by Alan W — 07 Oct 2017

Based on his classmate John 'Derf' Backderf's graphic novel, this is a personal account of future serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's last year in high school as he endures both school life and his bickering parents.

The film has a sympathetic and sad undertone to it and there are fleeting moments of campness and a few quotable lines that lighten the mood, but ultimately it paints a fairly standard picture of a quiet, socially awkward loner with a fascination for dead animals that will graduate into something more deadly and sinister.

Ross Lynch's baby face portrayal of Dahmer: all floppy blond hair, lifeless staring eyes and permanently drooping shoulders is creepy and effective, befitting the normal trajectory of a young actor trying to distance himself from his Disney past, and he does make the film very watchable.

However, without any grand insight into the killer's mind or how his upbringing and repressed sexuality will shape his future behaviour, Dahmer remains an evil enigma which this film cannot solve nor explain.