My Friend Dahmer Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

My Friend Dahmer Blu-ray Movie Review

No Henry, but still a portrait of a serial killer.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 29, 2018

Note: As some Blu-ray fans may be aware, FilmRise has been in the business of MOD discs for a while. My contact at MVD, which has recently entered into a distribution deal with FilmRise, tells me that this release (click on link) of My Friend Dahmer is FilmRise's MOD version. The release this review covers is for a pressed disc which bears the MVD Visual logo on the cover.

What goes into making a serial killer? In the wake of several recent horrifying mass shootings that have occurred (events that aren’t exactly similar to serial killing, but which are close enough to invite psychological comparisons), there have been acres of newsprint and terrabytes of data utilized by analysts trying to answer that very question. It’s perhaps unanswerable, and that might be one troubling issue at the core of My Friend Dahmer, a riveting film version of Derf Backderf’s graphic novel of the same name. For those who don’t recognize Backderf’s name, he actually went to high school with Jeffrey Dahmer, one of the most notorious serial killers in the history of the United States. Dahmer’s odd behaviors were already starting to raise eyebrows in and around Bath, Ohio. That said, Dahmer (Ross Lynch) simply seems to be yet another kind of nerdy social outcast as My Friend Dahmer begins, nothing that unusual in the wild and wooly world of high school, as almost anyone who has survived that time of their lives may recall. Dahmer sits by himself on the school bus, and while he seems weirdly interested (maybe even infatuated) by a male jogger he sees navigating the same two lane highway the bus is on, there’s not so much weirdness as to draw really undue attention. Dahmer shuffles in an odd semi-hunched over gait, perhaps one sign of a psyche folding in on itself, but he at least seems to have a relatively normal home life with mother Joyce (an impressive Anne Heche) and Lionel (Dallas Roberts, though that turns out to be (as perhaps should be expected) something of an illusion. While My Friend Dahmer may not be able to authoritatively answer “why” (simply because that may be an unanswerable question), it does do a remarkably effective job at documenting “how” this obviously troubled young man first flirted with and then went completely over to his particular “dark side”. It’s a discomfiting film from any number of angles, but it’s viscerally compelling and hard to shake off after you’ve seen it.

Aside from Dahmer’s interest in the jogger, he also has a “thing” for road kill, and in one of the most disturbing elements of the story, he collects these “items” and then dissolves them in acid courtesy of Lionel’s job as a chemist. It’s here that the film starts to tip over into truly troubling territory, with Dahmer, shuffling around like a teenage Quasimodo, casually invites some other boys in the neighborhood to witness his little science experiments. But there’s subtext galore even in terms of Dahmer’s home life, with certain irregularities between his parents (especially his mother) making it clear that this is not exactly the Cleavers of Leave It to Beaver fame (despite the fact that Jeffrey has a little “Beaver”-ish brother named Dave, played by Liam Koeth).

One of the things that remains puzzling in My Friend Dahmer is exactly how some of Dahmer’s undeniably pathological behaviors acutally began. In that regard, the film definitely begins in medias res, with Dahmer already firmly down the rabbit hole of not just animal mutilation, but also obsessions involving skeletal remains and “living” interests like the jogger he almost stalks at times. Playing out against these aberrant behaviors, though, is an almost sweet nature evinced by Dahmer, especially once he finds a clique of sorts at school which includes budding illustrator Derf (Alex Wolff). You can almost feel the tug of competing forces in Dahmer, something that Ross Lynch does an estimable job in portraying. He’s definitely giving in to the gravity of his worst desires, but at the same time, he’s struggling mightily to fit in, engaging in a series of high school pranks and often willingly acting the part of class clown.

The film might have been even more visceral had it made some of Dahmer’s patently bizarre behavior more overt. While there are incredibly troubling scenes in the film, including one with the family dog, Dahmer’s repressed homosexuality is really only kind of hinted at, including in a subtext filled scene with the jogger, who turns out to be a physician. Dahmer arranges for a “check up” with the doctor, and while nothing is said or even shown, it’s broadly hinted that Dahmer becomes sexually aroused when doing the “cough test” (if you have to ask, don’t). Even a previous question by the doctor about Dahmer being sexually active is met with a “What kind?”, which raises the doctor’s eyebrow, but much of this element is kind of left unsaid.

My Friend Dahmer is an unavoidably troubling character study, one with any number of unanswered questions at its core. Therefore, people coming to this film hoping for an understanding of what led Dahmer to become such a murderous maniac may not feel the film provides any satisfactory answers. Still, as an almost sociological depiction of one serial killer’s nascent days leading up to his first “real” kill, the film offers some viscerally compelling performances and a really creepy mood.

My Friend Dahmer Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

My Friend Dahmer is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FilmRise and MVD Visual with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. The IMDb lists the Arri Alexa XT as having digitally captured the imagery, and this transfer offers the sleek, slightly flat look of this technology. The imagery is generally quite sharp and well detailed, especially in the outdoor footage. There are occasional slight flirtations with aliasing and other image instability (watch, for example, the brick walls on the exterior of Dahmer's high school in some shots). The palette is a bit on the cool side much of the time. There are some slight odd anomalies at the very sides of the frame sometimes where things look slightly out of focus.

My Friend Dahmer Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As mentioned above, FilmRise has largely been in the business of issuing MOD discs, and all of those that I've reviewed have had only lossy audio. Unfortunately, that "tradition" continues with this pressed disc, with FilmRise offering Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 mixes. I intentionally downgrade lossy audio at this point in the format, since I'm an audiophile and want my Blu-ray discs (pressed or otherwise) to feature lossless audio, so my score above should be taken within that context. This is not a "showy" film from a sound design perspective, and the Dolby surround track does do at least a decent job of filling the side and rear channels with ambient environmental sounds both in some crowded school scenes as well as many of the outdoor moments. Dialogue is always clearly presented and easy to understand. But as FilmRise moves into a new era with its Blu-ray releases, they might want to consider upping the ante with lossless audio going forward.

My Friend Dahmer Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Ross Lynch (1080p; 3:06) is a brief poolside chat with the actor, who discusses things like shooting scenes in the actual Dahmer home.


• Behind the Scenes Slideshow (1080i)


• Official Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2:27) of course begs the question: was there an unofficial theatrical trailer? (Yes, that's a joke.)

My Friend Dahmer Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ross Lynch and Anne Heche head a rather remarkable cast in My Friend Dahmer, and it's the performances probably more than the admittedly horrifying story that may resonate with some viewers, especially since the film can't adequately explain why Dahmer tipped over into madness. Technical merits are generally fine, though this release has lossy audio. This is not an easy film to watch, but it's fascinating and for those who can stomach some of the overt depictions (including things like road kill), My Friend Dahmer comes Recommended.