🩸 Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (2022)


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🎬 Trailers First

Let’s start by showing y’all the trailers shall we?

The trailers for this series leaned heavy into moody horror, dark cinematography, and Evan Peters whispering lines like he’s a misunderstood anti-hero. From the get-go, it was obvious Netflix wasn’t treating this like a documentary — but like prestige TV horror. And that is already gross when you remember… Jeffrey Dahmer was a real man who murdered real people.

🧛‍♂️ The “Monster Cinematic Universe” Problem

Here’s where I have to stop and ask the most obvious question: what the hell is Netflix even doing here? They’ve basically created what feels like a “Monster Cinematic Universe” — except instead of capes and superpowers, it’s real-life murderers and tragedies. They’re promoting these shows with the same energy Marvel uses to tease its next crossover, only instead of Iron Man and Captain America, it’s Dahmer, the Menéndez Brothers, and now Ed Gein.

That’s not just exploitative — it’s downright dystopian. You’re taking real victims, real trauma, and real families who still exist today, and packaging it up like it’s part of a shared universe of horror icons. Tune in next season for your favorite killer’s origin story! Seriously? What’s next, Monsters: The Rodney Alcala Story?

And this isn’t about shedding light or respecting history. If it was, they wouldn’t be stylizing it like prestige horror or using glossy posters that look more like promo art for Silence of the Lambs than true crime. It feels less like they’re educating, and more like they’re saying: “Hey, step into our Monster-Verse! Collect them all!”

It’s grotesque. It’s exploitative. And it’s proof that Netflix has stopped asking whether these stories should be told, and only cares about whether they can market them.



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📖 Non-Spoiler Plot Overview

This 10-episode Netflix “drama” tries to retell the life and crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer (Evan Peters). The show follows his childhood, his killings, his capture, and his eventual death in prison. On paper, this sounds like it could have been an educational series or a respectful true-crime doc. Instead, what we got feels more like Netflix trying to make Dahmer a “tragic figure” for audiences to binge-watch.

And here’s the uncomfortable part — this isn’t a story about fictional characters. These were real victims, real families. Netflix didn’t even ask the victims’ families for permission or input. They just made this and cashed in.


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👥 Character Rundown

Jeffrey Dahmer (Evan Peters) – Played with creepy subtlety, but the writing (and Peters’ casting) unintentionally leans into making him seem like a brooding, misunderstood outsider. Netflix basically turned him into a “monster heartthrob,” and some fans even started thirsting over him on TikTok. That’s gross. I’ll say this though Evan Peters fully emersed into the role, even he admitted it took a toll on him.

Lionel Dahmer (Richard Jenkins) – Jeffrey’s father, painted as a flawed but caring figure. The show often pushes “bad parenting” as an excuse for Jeffrey’s crimes, which feels like cheap psychoanalysis.

Joyce Dahmer (Penelope Ann Miller) – His mother, portrayed as unstable and emotionally absent. Again, it feeds into this “look at how tragic his life was” narrative.

Glenda Cleveland (Niecy Nash) – One of the only characters shown with decency and heart. She was Jeffrey’s neighbor who repeatedly reported him to police. She is the only consistent moral voice in this mess.

The Victims – This is where the show fails hardest. The victims’ lives are shown only in glimpses, sometimes as props for shock or trauma-porn moments. Their humanity gets drowned out by Dahmer’s spotlight.



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🕰️ Pacing / Episode Flow

The pacing drags because instead of being concise, the show stretches Dahmer’s life over 10 bloated episodes. We get endless flashbacks, dreamlike montages, and “character study” filler. All of that adds up to more screen time on Dahmer’s psychology than on the people he destroyed. The result: a show that’s more about him than them.

🎭 Drama / Melodrama – It plays heavily like a prestige drama, with long, brooding character moments and endless monologues that try to humanize Dahmer in ways that feel misguided.

🔪 True Crime Horror – The show dips into horror imagery (grisly kills, body parts, blood-stained fridges), but it’s more about shock value than atmosphere. It feels less like horror for storytelling and more like grotesque spectacle.

📺 Soap Opera Vibes – Especially in family scenes and courtroom episodes, it weirdly drags like a daytime soap, trying to wring emotions from stretched-out arguments.

🕵️ Procedural Crime Thriller – Certain episodes suddenly pivot into “cop show” mode, focusing on detectives and neighbors noticing things. But instead of momentum, it drags into repetition: “Oh no, the cops ignored red flags… again.”

⚖️ Social Commentary / Exploitation – The show wants to lecture viewers about systemic racism, police incompetence, and societal neglect (which is fair), but it does so while simultaneously sensationalizing the murders and giving Dahmer screen time like he’s a misunderstood anti-hero.

😬 Unsettling Exploitation Tone – At its core, the tone that lingers the most is exploitative: Netflix frames real-life horror as bingeable TV, stylized with cliffhangers, eerie synth music, and heavy dramatization, as if this were fiction.

👉 So basically: it swings between drama, horror, crime procedural, exploitation, and soap opera, but the mix leaves it feeling messy and deeply inappropriate.



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✅ Pros

Evan Peters is a good actor. That’s it. I’ll give him credit for commitment.

Niecy Nash as Glenda Cleveland was excellent, bringing humanity into a story that desperately needed it.



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❌ Cons

Netflix never asked victims’ families for consent. They retraumatized them.

The show glorifies Dahmer by making him brooding, misunderstood, and “tragic.”

Way too many long stretches of Dahmer instead of focusing on the victims.

Grossly exploitative: horror-style directing in what should’ve been educational.

Fanbase reaction proves the problem: people thirsted over Dahmer online.



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💭 Final Thoughts

No seriously, who is this show for? If you’re making a series like this, you’re not educating anyone (because documentaries already exist). You’re not honoring the victims (because you barely show their lives). You’re not helping their families (because you didn’t consult them). So the only people left are sickos, gawkers, or true crime “binge” fans who want something to stream.

That’s not a healthy audience to serve.

Netflix started a whole “Monster” anthology because of this. Next is Ed Gein. Who’s after that? Bundy again? Gacy? This is a disgusting trend. It normalizes treating real murderers as entertainment mascots.

🚫 Stop Giving Killers Space in Your Head

Here’s the thing that always gets under my skin with these shows: why do we even need to study these killers like they’re some kind of twisted celebrities? What’s the point of giving Jeffrey Dahmer or the Menéndez brothers more screen time, more podcasts, more shows? The more we retell their stories, the more we give them exactly what they never deserved in the first place — space in our heads.

There’s nothing profound about obsessing over the “mind” of a murderer. At best, it’s morbid curiosity. At worst, it turns into glorification. Meanwhile, the people who actually deserve remembering — the victims — get shoved to the side, reduced to names on a list or blurry faces in a montage.

And honestly, it’s not even necessary. You don’t need to understand every little detail of how Dahmer lured people, or how the Menéndez brothers spun their courtroom narrative, or (soon) how Ed Gein decorated his house of horrors. That doesn’t teach us anything new about humanity — it just re-traumatizes families and keeps their monsters alive in pop culture.

So yeah. Enough with the “character studies.” Enough with the “true-crime dramas” that act like killers are fascinating puzzles to solve. Stop feeding them oxygen. Remember the victims, not the monsters. Ur not making urself smarter by learning any of this.



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⭐ Rating

2/10 – not for lack of acting or production, but because the concept itself is rotten. You cannot separate this from the fact that it’s glorifying a real-life serial killer.


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⚠️ Spoiler Warning

From here on out, spoilers. But honestly, what’s there to spoil? It’s a real case.


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🩸 Spoilers (Expanded)

Jeffrey’s Early Life – The series shows his childhood, his roadkill fascination, and his unstable family life. The show leans into “this is why he is the way he is,” which is a dangerous narrative.

First Kills – Netflix stages these like horror set pieces. Creepy lighting, tense buildup, shock kills. These were real people. Not slasher movie extras.

Glenda Cleveland’s Pleas – She calls the cops repeatedly about smells and screaming. The cops ignore her. It’s a tragic reminder of systemic racism and neglect — the only meaningful angle the show explores, but even this gets undercut because it’s still centered around Dahmer.

The Victims’ Stories – Episode 6 briefly focuses on Tony Hughes, a deaf victim, and his relationship with Dahmer. It’s actually respectful — until Netflix ruins it by going right back to Dahmer’s perspective.

Dahmer’s Capture – Shows his final arrest in 1991. By this point, the series feels like it’s dragging. We’ve seen enough, but Netflix keeps it going.

Trial & Prison – His trial is portrayed, again focusing on Dahmer more than victims. In prison, he’s depicted as oddly calm and almost saintly in some scenes.

Death – Dahmer is beaten to death in prison. Netflix stages this with slow motion, music, and dramatization, turning a real event into a weirdly cinematic climax.



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🕯️ On the Real Dahmer

The real Jeffrey Dahmer was not tragic. He wasn’t misunderstood. He was a manipulative murderer who preyed on marginalized men, mostly gay men of color. Making him into “dark Netflix horror” cheapens that truth. And families of those victims have gone on record saying they hate this show. That alone should’ve been enough to shut this project down.


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🧟 Closing Line

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story isn’t horror. It’s exploitation dressed as prestige TV. And no amount of Evan Peters brooding stares can change that.

Also here’s a trsiler for the upcoming Monsters: The Ed Gein Story, jeepers.