And, part two of the second two-parter.
Jeffrey Dahmer: The Secret Life (1993)
and
Dahmer (2002)
Y'know, If I were you, and could only watch one, I would probably actually go with the '93 one.
The budget is shit, the actor looks nothing like the real Dahmer...but his performance, and the research of the real story are dead fucking perfect.
It plays out like an R rated version of an "America's Most Wanted", re-enactment, but it's damned good for what it is, and what it has to work with.
The '02 remake has Jeremy Renner, and he's a better actor on a technical level...but he's not Dahmer, he distorts him into his own character for drama's sake.
The Renner one has updated revelations like the story Dahmer told his dad about the head in a box he (his old man) almost found, and in after-text, takes it up to his murder in prison.
But other than that, meh.
I could take or leave that one.
The great Dahmer movie has yet to be made.
But for now, the '93 one is as best as you'll find.
Of course, if you want to compare, go ahead and see both.
I'm just saying.
Now, for my philosophical musings.
Warning ya, in case you wanna change the channel.
See, I don't look at guys like this the way most people do.
I don't get that knee-jerk "oh, they're eeeevil!! They're from the Devil!!", feeling.
Those reactions are for kids from my perspective.
I'm a big evolutionary psychology guy.
I'm one that thinks if evolution can explain how every little hair and fingernail on your body got where they are, then it has to apply to every bump and wrinkle in the brain, and everything, everything, everything was selected for.
Everything can be explained by survival utility.
Even being a homicidal psycho had survival value for our ancestors, or where else did psychos come from?
They sure don't fall from the sky.
So, when I hear about a guy who had heads in his fridge, I'm like "of course. Of course you found that guy. I'm surprised there aren't more".
And of course there are.
Like I said in the Manson one, they just play society's game better, and confine their really twisted acts to foreign countries with lax human rights.
Thailand's economy runs on child rape, fer chrissake.
Who do you think's going there, Fred from the auto garage?
No, it's wealthy white businessmen.
You think if one of those sons of bitches had been forced to grow up in fucking Milwaukee, they wouldn't have heads in a fridge?
Please!
I also love what Dahmer's story does to the nervous Nellies that want to censor media.
Cuts their legs right out from under them.
Dahmer once testified that he tried to get his jollies from horror movies, but they bored him, because his fucked up imagination was better.
There you go, right from the horse's mouth.
A living laboratory, and he goddamned told you all, movies don't do it.
Movies. Don't. Do it.
Get that through your thick fucking skulls, folks.
If that cold hard reality doesn't sit well with your precious political narratives, that's just tough shit for you.
Reboot yourself, and get a new narrative.
Otherwise, you're devoting your life to folly.
Anyway, both of these flicks are on Youtube.
Enjoy.
There's actually a third one "Raising Dahmer", but I can tell from the trailer it's a fetid piece of unwatchable shit.
Avoid it.
Aaaand...yeah, that's it.
That's those.
Up next, back to the warm embracing safety of flesh eating mutants.
7 comments:
I saw the 2002 film. I thought Renner did okay but was playing more of a sad lonely gay guy with nobody to talk to than any kind of "monster." I sort of appreciate that the movie isn't interested in gore or eating people, I guess one could go either way with that. It wasn't any kind of great film though. Renner got his role in "The Hurt Locker" because Kathryn Bigelow saw that movie just FYI.
Yeah, real Dahmer had that weird blank personality with an affectless speech pattern in interviews, and that's how the other dude played him.
I guess the producers of the Renner film thought that would bore audiences.
I only saw one interview with the real guy, and only read about what he did once, way back in high school, so it's not like "Zodiac" where I've got the clues all memorized and shit (and it was an actual "interview," not the "I HATE YOU JEFFREY!" sad court freakout.)
The Renner film was also really really low budget. It looked almost like one of those HBO "Lifestories: Families In Crisis" movies, like that one that had Ben Affleck in it as the steroid guy who loses his mind, or Calista Flockhart as the bulimic girl (no really.)
Why does Manson say "Well why blame it on me, I didn't write the music?" in his rant in that Helter Skelter 1976 movie, when he actually did write some music? Go look up the Beach Boys song "Cease To Exist," he wrote that one!
Say here's some news...
http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/133930/nine-minutes-of-lost-night-of-the-living-dead-footage-found/
Cool!
Oh! Been meaning to say, I saw "Just One Of The Guys", and "It Takes Two".
The latter was the worst. Bang my head against the wall bad.
I'd Seen the former, but I needed by memory refreshed.
That one's corny, but at least I could sit through it without pausing to swear at the screen.
Oh, and yes, I've seen "Eating Raoul".
I like it very much.
The Projection Booth did a whole show on it if you want to learn every single thing about it until your brain melts.
http://projection-booth.blogspot.com/2013/11/episode-142-eating-raoul.html
I will get around to "Zodiac", and "Night Crawler", too.
I've never actually sat all the way through "It Takes Two" from 1988, I just remember the "Chicken chicken" (*baaaarrf*) scene from when I was a kid...some sharp eyed guy on the I Need To Know IMDb board found it for me....you actually watched ALL of it? Yeuuuughhh!
"Just One Of The Guys" remains hilarious super guilty pleasure.
"Eating Raoul" was a better use of Bartel and Woronov than "Rock & Roll High School." A nice little comedy for the Criterion collection...
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