My Friend Dahmer follows Jeffrey Dahmer in his later high school years before he committed any murders. He is a lonely outcast who suddenly finds friends and a sort of fame with disruptive outbursts at school. His home life is rough as his parents split and his mother is prone to raving. Jeffrey is very quiet with a flat affect, but his emotions are still conveyed through Ross Lynch’s nuanced performance. Multiple times throughout the movie, Jeffrey gets close to killing, then turns away at the last minute. He starts with animals (after putting roadkill in acid and bleaching their bones to carry around) and then toys with killing humans as his life gets bleaker and bleaker. This film moves deliberately and builds harrowing, quiet dread as Dahmer falls deeper and deeper into his obsessions.
