My Friend Dahmer: is it time to stop glamorising the serial killer?

My Friend Dahmer is about as unglamorous a serial-killer movie as you could hope for: it doesn’t even feature any murders (not of humans, at least). Instead, it lays out the warning signs that all was not right with the teenage Jeffrey Dahmer: his unstable parents, his repressed sexuality, his high-school victimisation, his unwholesome interest in anatomy.

And yet, by its very existence, the movie can’t help but glamorise its subject, who went on to variously rape, murder, dismember, violate and cannibalise his 17 male victims. It doesn’t matter if you portray them as damaged souls or psychopaths; you’re still adding to the legend. Faced with this realisation, much of our current serial-killer fare has cast realism aside to embrace the glamour. That was certainly true of Ryan Murphy’s miniseries The Assassination of Gianni Versace, whose glitzy Miami settings, A-list cast and 90s couture made for a more appealing watch than such grubby classics as, say, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Meanwhile, Zac Efron is set to play Ted Bundy in a big-screen thriller that suggests that, with the right breaks, Bundy could have had a fruitful career as a lifeguard. And who knows what Quentin Tarantino’s forthcoming Manson flick has in store? He’s described it as “probably the closest to Pulp Fiction that I have done”.

Post-Hannibal Lecter, we prefer our killers cultured, intelligent and presentable, like Dexter, American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman or Kevin Spacey in Seven. That dangerous glamour also rubs off on the actors. It never looks bad to have a serial-killer role on your CV, especially if all that’s on it so far are wholesome teen roles. That was the case with Ross Lynch, AKA Young Jeffrey Dahmer, who’s been largely a Disney kid up to now. Versace’s murderer Andrew Cunanan was played by Darren Criss, previously best known for Glee, just as Efron was once indelibly associated with High School Musical.
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Which brings us to the best current take on serial killers: David Fincher’s Netflix series Mindhunter, detailing the early history of FBI psychological profiling. Our wide-eyed fed hero, Holden (Jonathan Groff, another Glee graduate), is almost starstruck by the killers he interviews, including Ed Kemper and Richard Speck. He considers Manson the ultimate challenge. But unlike previous serial-killer thrillers, including Fincher’s own Seven and Zodiac, Mindhunter examines the troubling mix of awe and disgust with which we regard these murderers. In the final episode, Holden visits Kemper in hospital. “Why are you here, Holden?” Kemper asks. “I don’t know,” Holden replies. Kemper then hugs him, as he finally realises how totally messed up things have become. We’re right there with him.