My Friend Dahmer

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Movie
Original title My Friend Dahmer
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2017
length 107 minutes
Rod
Director Marc Meyers
script Marc Meyers
production Milan Chakraborty ,
Michael Merlob
music Andrew Hollander
camera Daniel Katz
cut Jamie Kirkpatrick
occupation

My Friend Dahmer is a biography by Marc Meyers that premiered on April 21, 2017 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival . The film is based on a graphic novel of the same name by John Backderf , known under the stage name Derf, in which he tells of his acquaintance with the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer .

action

The film is set in the 1970s. High school student Jeffrey Dahmer lives in rural Ohio with parents Joyce and Lionel and younger brother Dave . He's drawn to a jogger who regularly walks past his parents' house, but keeps his homosexual feelings to himself. At his school he is considered an outsider who is bullied. In his free time he collects animal carcasses from the roadside, which he keeps in a shed behind his parents' house and which he dissolves in acid down to the bone. Lionel Dahmer, who is rarely there for work, displeases his son's hobby. He destroys the collection and expects Jeff to become more "normal" and make friends.

At school, Jeff begins to attract the attention of his classmates with bizarre jokes: he bleats during class, imitates the spasticity of his mother's interior designer, paints chalk corpses on the floor, suggests false hurricane alarms and fakes epileptic seizures. His classmates Derf, Mike and Neil then set up the "Dahmer Fan Club," the main purpose of which is to incite Jeff into more nonsense. Derf feels inspired by Jeff and draws him as a cartoon character in various situations.

At home, Jeff discovers that his drug-addicted mother is taking pills again. She reveals that she has been swallowing the drugs with him since he was pregnant and ignores his pleading to see a doctor. His parents argue all the time and he responds to his frustration by cutting trees and starting to get drunk on high-proof alcohol. As a result, his friends turn more and more away from him.

During a school trip to Washington, DC Jeff calls the office of the Vice President of the United States and receives a private tour for himself and his friends, during which they meet Walter Mondale . When he returns home from the school trip, he learns that his father has moved out and that his parents are going to divorce. After learning from Mike that the jogger was Dr. Matthews, Jeff makes an appointment with him. He gets an erection during the exam. At home, he masturbates and fantasizes that he is with Dr. Matthews' body is lying together. To put his fantasy into action, he ambushes him with a baseball bat, but there is no attack.

The Dahmer fan club decides that Jeff should give one last "introduction". He agrees and goes "crazy" to the amusement of his classmates in a shopping mall. He later invites a girl to the prom , but feels so uncomfortable at the ball that he postpones his date and spends the rest of the evening in his car. Shortly afterwards, his mother tells him that she is moving away with Dave. He must promise her not to tell Lionel about it. Jeff now lives alone in his parents' house. One evening after graduating from school, Derf offers to drive him home. Once there, they talk about their future plans. Derf would like to give Jeff his drawings, but Jeff refuses. Derf drives away and loses contact with Jeff. In the final scene, Jeff picks up a hitchhiker who introduces himself as Steven Hicks. In the credits , the viewer learns that Steven Hicks was never seen again and that Jeffrey Dahmer confessed to killing 17 men after his arrest.

Biographical background

Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960 in Milwaukee , Wisconsin and grew up in Bath, Ohio. Shortly after graduating from high school in 1978, he committed his first murder of a hitchhiker. After dropping out of college and being prematurely discharged from the army for his excessive alcohol consumption, he moved back to Milwaukee, where he murdered 16 more men and teenagers, mostly from the gay scene, before his arrest in July 1991. He almost always followed the same pattern. Dahmer initially lured his victims into his apartment under a pretext, drugged and sexually abused them and then strangled them. He photographed the lifeless bodies with an instant camera in grotesque poses before dismembering the corpses. He frequently picked up his victim's skull and other body parts and practiced necrophilia and cannibalism , which earned him the nickname The Milwaukee Cannibal in the media and made him one of the most famous serial killers of the 20th century.

After his conviction, in contrast to most other serial killers, he expressed remorse for his actions and was cooperative in the police investigation. He also admitted murders that would not have been discovered without his confession and emphasized several times that he was solely responsible for his actions. In court, Dahmer's defense lawyer pleaded insanity. Psychiatrists diagnosed him with a number of mental disorders, but a Milwaukee jury found him sane and sentenced him to a maximum of 15 consecutive life sentences. In Ohio, Dahmer was sentenced to another life imprisonment for his first murder. On November 28, 1994, he was killed by a fellow inmate in the maximum security prison.

production

Ross Lynch took on the title role of Jeffrey Dahmer in the film

The film is based on some short stories that John Backderf summarized in a 224 page comic entitled My Friend Dahmer , who tried to work through his youth and acquaintance with Jeffrey Dahmer. Backderf was a classmate and friend of Dahmer until 1978, but after they had lost sight of each other, he only became aware of Dahmer when he was arrested in 1991 and was shocked. After he was murdered in prison, Backderf carefully researched the story of young Jeffrey Dahmer for his book, studied police and FBI files about his crimes and interviewed other of his former classmates and teachers. In his graphic novel , finally published in 2012, Backderf tells of a previously unknown part of Dahmer's life, such as trips to a shopping mall and amicable fooling around. In 2013, My Friend Dahmer was published in a German translation under the title Mein Freund Dahmer .

Directed by Marc Meyers, who also adapted Backderf's graphic novel for the film. The script landed on the blacklist of Hollywood's Best Unfilmed Ideas in 2014 . The American singer, actor and dancer Ross Lynch plays Jeffrey Dahmer in the title role. Alex Wolff took on the role of Derf aka John Backderf, the author of the graphic novel. Anne Heche plays Jeffrey's mother Joyce and Dallas Roberts plays his father Lionel.

Filming took place in the Ohio cities of Cleveland and Akron . Among other things, the film was shot in the house where Dahmer grew up and committed his first murder. The score was composed by Andrew Hollander . The soundtrack for the film comprises 10 pieces of music and was released for download on March 30, 2018 by Lakeshore Records.

The film celebrated its world premiere on April 21, 2017 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival . In June 2017 the film was presented at the Los Angeles Film Festival . The German premiere took place on September 13, 2017 as part of the Fantasy Filmfest in Hamburg and Stuttgart. In October 2017 the film was shown at the London Film Festival . A first trailer for the film was also presented in October 2017. FilmRise has secured the rights to commercialize the film in North America. The film was released in US cinemas on November 3, 2017. In March 2018 there was a screening at the Dublin Film Festival. The film was screened at the Belfast Film Festival in April 2018 and released in cinemas in the United Kingdom and Ireland on June 1, 2018.

reception

Reviews

The film has so far won over 86 percent of Rotten Tomatoes critics .

Marc Meyers from Sight and Sound says that you already know the monster Jeffrey Dahmer will become, but Marc Meyers also focuses in the film on the better person he could have become and shows the poisoning experiences that such a development has prevented and are the trigger for its tragic change.

Owen Gleiberman of Variety said the film see Jeffrey Dahmer as what he was: a young man who could express himself only by the hideous violence.

Awards

Austin Fantastic Fest 2017

  • Award for Best Film - Fantastic Features ( Marc Meyers )

Deauville Film Festival 2017

  • Nomination for the Grand Prix Le Palmarès (Marc Meyers)

Sitges Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya 2017

  • Nomination for Best Film in the Oficial Fantàstic Competition (Marc Meyers)
  • Nomination in the Oficial Fantàstic Competition (Marc Meyers)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Derf Backderf: My Friend Dahmer . Abrams ComicArts, New York 2012, ISBN 978-1-4197-0216-7 , pp. 214 .
  2. ↑ Derf Backderf: My Friend Dahmer . Abrams ComicArts, New York 2012, ISBN 978-1-4197-0216-7 , pp. 220 .
  3. ↑ a b Jeffrey Dahmer is one of the most ruthless serial killers in the world - now his story is coming to the cinema . In: galileo.tv, July 26, 2017.
  4. ↑ Stephen McFarland: Jeffrey Dahmer, the Milwaukee Cannibal, is caught in 1991 . In: Daily News . NYDailyNews.com, May 21, 2015, accessed on July 29, 2017 (originally an article from the Daily News of July 24, 1991, archived on its own website).
  5. ↑ Patrick Kennedy, Robyn Maharaj: Dahmer Detective . Poison Berry Press, 2016, ISBN 978-0-9947500-0-6 , pp. 294, 296 .
  6. ↑ 15 Life Terms and No Parole for Dahmer . In: The New York Times . The New York Times Company, February 18, 1992, accessed July 29, 2017 .
  7. ↑ Crime: Disciples of Satan . In: Der Spiegel, December 5, 1994.
  8. ↑ kino.de
  9. ↑ Brent Lang: 'My Friend Dahmer' With Ross Lynch Sells to FilmRise (EXCLUSIVE) . In: Variety . May 15, 2017, accessed August 27, 2017 .
  10. ↑ filmmusicreporter.com
  11. ↑ 'My Friend Dahmer' Soundtrack Announced . In: filmmusicreporter.com, March 26, 2018.
  12. ↑ My Friend Dahmer ( Memento of the original from September 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fantasyfilmfest.com archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: fantasyfilmfest.com. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
  13. ^ All films in the 2017 BFI London Film Festival . In: bfi.org.uk. Retrieved August 31, 2017.
  14. ↑ filmstarts.de
  15. ^ Program booklet of the Audi Dublin International Film Festival 2018 . In: diff.ie. Accessed March 9, 2018 (PDF)
  16. ↑ belfastfilmfestival.org
  17. ↑ My Friend Dahmer . In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  18. ↑ Marc Meyers: Come out to play: nine of the best Cult titles at the BFI London Film Festival 2017 . In: bfi.org.uk, October 3, 2017.
  19. ↑ Owen Gleiberman: Tribeca Film Review: 'My Friend Dahmer' In: Variety, April 27, 2017.
  20. ↑ Announcing The Fantastic Fest 2017 Awards Recipients! . In: fantasticfest.com, September 28, 2017.
  21. ↑ Palmarès 2017 . In: festival-deauville.com. Retrieved September 22, 2017.
  22. ^ Prix ​​et nominations: Festival du Cinéma Américain de Deauville 2017 . In: allocine.fr. Retrieved September 22, 2017.
  23. ↑ My Friend Dahmer . In: sitgesfilmfestival.com. Retrieved March 9, 2018.