Jeffrey Dahmer series, 'Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story,' begins streaming on Netflix

Akron’s most infamous son, Jeffrey Dahmer, is the subject of a TV series now streaming on Netflix.

The notorious serial killer who grew up in Bath Township is the lead character in “Dahmer,” a 10-episode series whose original title was “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.”

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Emmy-winning actor Evan Peters, 35, stars in the miniseries, which features Richard Jenkins and Penelope Ann Miller as parents Lionel and Joyce Dahmer. The cast also includes Niecy Nash, Michael Learned, Khetphet Phagnasay, Karen Malina White, Brayden Maniago, Arye Gross and Shaun J. Brown.

“The series will largely be told from the point of view of Dahmer’s victims, and dives deeply into the police incompetence and apathy that allowed the Wisconsin native to go on a multiyear killing spree that resulted in the murder and dismemberment of 17 men and boys from 1978-1991, many of them persons of color and some underage,” according to Hollywood entertainment site Deadline.

Emmy-winning producer, director and writer Ryan Murphy created the show with Ian Brennan. Murphy’s previous shows include “Popular,” “Glee,” “Nip/Tuck,” “American Horror Story,” “Scream Queens,” “Pose,” “American Crime Story,” “9-1-1,” “9-1-1: Lone Star” and “Ratched.”

‘Dahmer’ is ‘ominous, scary and dark’

The show was filmed in Los Angeles in 2021.

“Dahmer” is rated TV-MA for “substances, language, violence, nudity, gore, sexual violence and smoking.” The show is described as “ominous, scary and dark.”

Netflix released a sneak peek at www.netflix.com/title/81287562/. The nine-second teaser trailer begins with a close-up of Peters’ bespectacled face and zooms into his red-rimmed left eye while screeching music plays in the background.

The early reviews are in. Variety says the series “marks a grim, all too predictable addition to Ryan Murphy's oeuvre.” The Daily Telegraph calls it a “competent and earnest character study that goes out of its way to make the viewer’s insides lurch, their skin crawl.” The Playlist says it is “gorgeous and terrible, sad and thrilling, horrifying and intoxicating, contextualizing a serial killer without necessarily letting him off the hook in a way that would be exploitative.”

Where did Jeffrey Dahmer live?

Dahmer grew up on Bath Road and attended Bath Elementary, Eastview Junior High and Revere High School.

Jeffrey Dahmer's first victim in Ohio

His killing spree began June 18, 1978, after he picked up Steven M. Hicks, 18, of Coventry Township, who was hitchhiking on Route 224 after a concert at Chippewa Lake. He drove the youth to the Dahmer home under the guise of having a few beers. When Hicks tried to leave, Dahmer killed him, dismembered the body and scattered the remains around his yard.

Dahmer moved to Milwaukee, where he killed 16 more people. Police arrested him in July 1991 after a handcuffed man escaped from his apartment, where officers later found human skulls and other remains.

Two patrolmen were fired after it was revealed that officers had returned a drugged, naked 14-year-old boy to Dahmer’s apartment following an escape attempt. Dahmer convinced them that the youth was his drunken boyfriend. When police left, Dahmer killed the teen.

According to Deadline, the series dramatizes “at least 10 instances where Dahmer was almost apprehended but ultimately let go.”

Dahmer confessed to 17 killings and was sentenced to life in prison. A fellow inmate beat him to death in 1994 at Columbia Correctional Institution in Wisconsin. He was 34.

How did Evan Peters research role of Jeffrey Dahmer?

In a 2021 interview with Danielle Turchiano in Variety, Peters explained his research for the role of the killer.

“I’ve read so much, I’ve watched so much, I’ve seen so much, and at a certain point, you’ve got to say, ‘All right, that’s enough,’ ” Peters said. “There are beautifully written scripts. You can have all the backstory you want, but at the end of the day we’re not making a documentary.

“It’s more about maintaining the idea and the through line of why you’re telling the story and always having that as your guiding light. But there’s so much material for Dahmer that I think it’s incredibly important to make it really authentic.”

Peters won an Emmy in 2021 for a supporting role in the HBO miniseries “Mare of Easttown,” a crime drama starring Kate Winslet as a detective in Pennsylvania.

“Dahmer” is Hollywood’s latest take on the serial killer.

Coincidentally, Peters appeared opposite Dahmer’s character in the fifth season of Murphy’s “American Horror Story” on FX in 2015-2016. Actor Seth Gabel played Dahmer in a supernatural tale about a Los Angeles hotel where the ghosts of serial killers gather, including John Wayne Gacy, Aileen Wuornos and Richard Ramirez. Peters played the sinister innkeeper.

Other movies about Jeffrey Dahmer

Dahmer also appeared on the big screen in “My Friend Dahmer,” a 2017 film based on the award-winning graphic novel by John “Derf” Backderf, a former classmate.

Former Disney Channel star Ross Lynch earned positive reviews for his portrayal of Dahmer as a troubled youth. The supporting cast includes Alex Wolff as Backderf, Anne Heche as Joyce Dahmer and Dallas Roberts as Lionel Dahmer. Directed by Marc Meyers, the R-rated movie includes scenes filmed in Dahmer’s actual childhood home.

Future “Avengers” star Jeremy Renner played the serial killer in the 2002 horror film “Dahmer.” David Jacobson wrote and directed the low-budget movie, which is also available to view on Netflix.

Jeffrey Dahmer has been dead for nearly 30 years, but he continues to haunt pop culture.

Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com.

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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Jeffrey Dahmer Akron Ohio: Serial killer subject of new Netflix series