Trailer
Plot summary
Dahmer works at a chocolate factory in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and at night he lures young men back to his apartment, where he experiments on them. He wants a companion who cannot walk away. At a knife shop he meets Rodney, a charismatic young man he invites home. Flashbacks go back to his teenage years in Bath, Ohio, to his drinking and to his tense relationship with his father, Lionel, a man who senses that something is wrong with his son but does not know what. Dahmer explains what he does by pointing to his parents' divorce and to a childhood he spent cut off from other people.
Cast
- Christina Payanoas Letitia
- Tom'ya Bowdenas Shawna
- Mickey Swensonas Officer Phillips
- Julius Brancaas Officer Powell
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Dahmer (2002)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director David Jacobson said he was inspired to make Dahmer after hearing an NPR interview with the killer's father, Lionel Dahmer, and reading a quote from Jeffrey Dahmer explaining he killed his victims because he was too afraid to lose them; the script drew heavily on Court TV's trial coverage and Lionel Dahmer's book A Father's Story.
- David Jacobson struggled to find producers willing to make Dahmer because so many were disgusted by its explicit content, forcing him to circulate a four-page statement defending the project; he ultimately shot the entire film in just 18 days.
- Director Kathryn Bigelow cast Jeremy Renner as the bomb-disposal specialist lead in The Hurt Locker directly because of his performance as Jeffrey Dahmer in this film, a role that helped launch his later A-list career.
