The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer
Suspense / Horror
Intervision
CAV Distributors
R1 DVD
Jeffrey
Dahmer was the product of a broken home, who finished
up living with his grandmother. From the age of about ten he began to dissect roadkill and gradually moved on to stranger practices. As
he grew older he started drinking heavily. He started hunting young men and
killed four of them secretly while he lived with his grandmother. She finally
asked him to leave when she could no longer stand his argumentative
personality, his drunkenness, and the strange smells coming from the basement where
he killed and dismembered his victims.
When
he moved into his own apartment his killings reach spree proportions. He
particularly targeted gays. His practices widened to include rape, torture, necrophilia and
strange experiments like injecting acid into the brain of victims to create
zombies. The bodies were now being disposed of in a barrel of acid. Although
other tenants complained about the smell he continued to kill and dismember
young men.
He
nearly ran into trouble when a young victim was unconscious and he left the
unit to get more beer. On his return the young man had escaped to the footpath
outside the units and was incoherent. Dahmer told
police he was the young man’s boyfriend, and the youngster had trouble with
drugs. Amazingly the police gave him back the youth without any further
investigation. In another near escape he was caught with an underage youth in
his unit. Although he protested that the boy was over 18 he was charged and put
on parole and a five year bond on condition that he gave up drinking and stayed
away from underage boys. His truculent attitude to his parole officer suggests
that he didn’t learn much from this, and he continued drinking. He knew,
though, that the end must come sooner or later.
He
committed nearly twenty known murders before being caught. Although he was a
strong man when attacking a victim, he picked one man who was even stronger.
This one escaped and called the police. They found body parts in the fridge and
the acid barrel with a body in it. They found the skull of one of his victims,
and photos of others.
The
film stars Carl Crew as Dahmer and he plays the part
strongly. There are few gory scenes, but the viewer’s imagination and Dahmer’s monologue will fill in the dreadful details. The
story is narrated from Dahmer’s point of view in an
autobiographical style. It is very hard to form any sort of involvement with Dahmer, however. He appears to be almost emotionless and
amoral, but still knows he is being driven deeper into his own world. At the
end of the film he half-rationalises that “I
should have stayed with God. I tried and failed and I created a holocaust. I
know society will never be able to forgive me…. I pray God will forgive me.” (Dahmer’s own
words)
Between
1978 and 1991 Dahmer killed seventeen men and boys,
for which he was sentenced to 17 consecutive life sentences. A further murder
turned up a year later.
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