Evan Peters Set to Play Jeffery Dahmer in the Netflix Limited-Series MONSTER
American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy is developing a new limited series for Netflix titled Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story. Evan Peters will be taking on the role of Jeffery Dahmer in the series, and he will be joined by Niecy Nash, Penelope Ann Miller, Shaun J. Brown, Colin Ford, and Richard Jenkins.
Monster chronicles the story “of one of America’s most notorious serial killers, largely 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. The series dramatizes at least 10 instances where Dahmer was almost apprehended but ultimately let go. The series also is expected to touch on white privilege, as Dahmer, a clean-cut, good-looking white guy, was repeatedly given a free pass by cops as well as by judges who were lenient when he had been charged with petty crimes.” The series spans the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s and ends with Dahmer’s arrest in the early ’90s.
Miller and Jenkins are set to play Dahmer’s mother Joyce and father Lionel. Nash takes on the series’ female lead, Glenda Cleveland, who is a neighbor of Dahmer’s that called police several times and even tried calling the FBI to alert them of Dahmer’s erratic behavior, to no avail.
Brown plays Tracy, Dahmer’s last intended victim who fought back and managed to escape Dahmer. His escape led the cops to Dahmer’s apartment, resulting in the serial killer’s arrest. Ford will play Chazz.
The pilot episode is being directed by Carl Franklin with Janet Mock set to direct and write several episodes. Ian Brennan is also a co-creator on the series and he will help write with Mock and David McMillan, who also serves as supervising producer for the 10-episode limited series.
Dahmer was known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, and he murdered and dismembered 17 men and boys from 1978-1991, many of them persons of color and some underage. Most of the murders also involved necrophilia, cannibalism and the preservation of body parts. Convicted of 16 murders, he was beaten to death by another inmate in 1994, two years into his sentence. He was 34.
There are have been multiple films about Dahmer made over the years and what makes this series different in that it said to take a more psychological approach and “focuses on how the murders were allowed to happen over more than a decade.”
Source: Deadline