The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer

The life of disturbed man Jeffrey Dahmer (Carl Crew) is chronicled from 1978 to his capture in 1991 chronicling the various murders and encounters with law enforcement.

The Secret Life (aka The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer) is a 1993 direct to video biographical crime drama produced and directed by David Bowen (whose prior credits are mostly associate producer duties on low budget genre flicks) and written by and starring Carl Crew who some know from his sideshow museum/nightclub California Institute of Abnormalarts (now closed as of 2022) and long time viewers of the Cinema Snob will know of him from his work co-starring and writing the film Gross Out. Beginning production in January of 1992 before Dahmer's trial had even finished, the movie was filmed independently and in secret with Crew using newspaper stories and court transcripts as the primary research for the film. The movie was derided by the families of the victims, escaped victims, and critics with a notable climax to the controversy captured in an episode of Maury Povich's tabloid talk show wherein Bowen and Crew defending themselves against accusations from a survivor of Dahmer's spree and the mothers of two of Dahmer's victims. The Povich interview is also where I got most of the information related to the research on this movie (as smaller productions from the 80s and 90s aren't well documented) and while the victims in the movie don't have the real life names of the actual victims, a cursory glance at the timeline of events shows how detailed the murder sections are and how transparently they serve as analogues to real life people. Controversy aside, The Secret Life has largely fallen by the wayside in the years since its release as it has never been re-released passed the initial VHS run, and has largely gone the way of one of those "Ripped from the headlines" TV films like The O. J. Simpson Story that were made quickly, cheaply, and fed off the hot button issue of the time. Upon a look back, The Secret Life is just another hot button movie where competence and purpose were a distant second to quickness and first mover advantage.

Movies based off of real life atrocities are nothing new as the Robert Bloch novel Psycho and the Hitchcock film adaptation of the same name both take influence from Ed Gein "The Butcher of Plainfield" with later films such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Silence of the Lambs also using Gein as a basis for their killers Leatherface and Buffalo Bill. Smaller films were especially noted for this approach such as the surprisingly decent Arch Hall Jr. Film The Sadist which was inspired by Charles Starkweather or even something rather silly like 1971's The Zodiac Killer which was actually part of an elaborate plan by director Tom Hanson to make a ridiculous backstory for the unknown serial killer in the hopes he'd arouse the killer's curiosity and be able to lead police to catch him (true story). But with something like Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs, and even The Sadist those weren't direct adaptations of real life events and only took inspiration from them so they could be afforded a degree of leeway in terms of what they were. The Zodiac Killer is another matter, but at least Hanson was trying to bring about something positive with his movie (silly as it may be in hindsight). When it comes to the genre of True Crime, you need to have a point as to "why" you're telling this story. If your point is "it's a big story and we wanted to get to it first" that's not a good reason and that's just being exploitative, to The Secret Life's credit it doesn't linger on the torture scenes of sadism any longer than it needs to and does try to look at the human core of Jeffrey Dahmer, but it's also not very good at it.

Throughout the film Carl Crew provides voice over narration as Dahmer narrating his internal struggle from Dahmer's first kill in 1978. The movie notes Dahmer's latent homosexual attractions that are intertwined with violent desires, but while the movie acknowledges that point it's never really built upon as we just travel linearly through the killings from 1978 to Dahmer's capture in 1991 with a predictable rhythm of Dahmer lures men to his apartment with a job offer of taking pictures of them, he drugs them, then he tortures or kills them in various ways. The sequences with Dahmer luring and killing the men are accurate to the details of real life events (making the name change of characters pretty pointless as they're basically 1:1 recreations) but aside from a few scenes where police dismissed claims of witness and neighbors of Dahmer which seems like where the real richness of this material should come from, there's not much commentary on why this story needed to be told with Crew's ending monologue about "straying too far from God" just feeling like a hollow wrap-up because they couldn't figure out a more satisfying way of ending this story because there is no story and it's just a loose sequence of events daisy chained together.

From a production standpoint the movie looks cheap and low quality. Not only is the production design and scope very limited, but Crew plays Dahmer from the age of 18 to 31 and at the time Crew was 30 years old and looks it and there's no real effort giving to aging him throughout the movie with makeup or wardrobe and were it not for the title texts telling us where we are in the story you wouldn't be able to know where we are exactly. The movie also shows its budget with the usage of these title texts as it uses them as sticky tape to hold this movie together, glossing over elements like court proceedings such as Dahmer's arrest for enticing a minor. We also get some very odd choices that defy description like flashbacks to 6 year old Jeffrey playing with toy trucks in the yard run through a black and white filter, or a weird scene where Jeffrey is called by a man in a phone booth dressed like a catholic priest who laughs maniacally (yes, really), and all this coupled with the already sloppy production makes for a frustrating and directionless sit that can't justify itself.

The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer is about on the level of any average poorly produced "movie of the week" that was thrown together for the sake of tapping into some controversial topic. The only thing that differentiates Secret Life from The O. J. Simpson Story is that the movie is a little bloodier I guess, but not to the point where it delivers any real exploitative "passed the real of good taste" shock factor and is just a dull directionless movie that doesn't have anything to say about Dahmer other than "we covered him first!". Because that's what this movie is, it's the 1993 VHS equivalent of a comment on a YouTube video that says "FIRST!". Great, you're first.....and?

This is a tough film to review, since several factors need to be taken into account. Let's filter the more judgmental..Ok, are you interested in the facts concerning the serial killer of Jeffrey Dahmer? Can you withstand an independent, low-budget film? Are you objective enough to NOT dislike a film solely due to its lack of stars or professional look? Well, if you said yes then you should have a mind open enough to handle this one. This film is an almost 100% accurate dramatization of Dahmer's adult life and subsequent murder spree, and is styled as an autobiography. It isn't a glamorized, unrealistic account that unfortunately the theatrical film "Dahmer" (2001) was. The movie begins with Dahmer, played quite convincingly by Carl Crew, sitting in the police car as they raid his apartment. His thoughts of what got him there are presented to us in a past-tense, narrated style that accurately explains much of Dahmer's psychoses and motives which led him to commit murder almost 20 times. We get to know the character, both the devious side as well as the side that came moderately close to living a normal life. It isn't anyone's fault but Dahmer's that 17 people died, but being a criminal psychology student, I was pleased to more than just his animalistic side represented, truthfully, in this film. You see him having a loving relationship with his grandmother as well as trying to find companionship, but of course we witness the side of him that everyone remembers. It should be noted that there is little actual onscreen violence, with much of it suggestive in shots such as spattering of blood or a body being struck through a blurred curtain. You do see two deaths that I remember, one being a pretty bloodless throat slash and the other being a man shoved alive into a barrel of acid. While you don't see anything graphic, this cruelty and the convincing acting of both Crew and his victim make this a disturbing scene. And while the actual onscreen mutilation is kept low, you will see the results. There is a prop hand and head or two, but it seems as if this was to disturb the viewer and doesn't look to be exploitive. Besides, these fake anatomical pieces are where the budget limitations are visible. Although acceptable, they look enough like fakes to not be too disturbing. The film actually concludes before Dahmer's death in 1994, due to the fact that it was released a year or two prior. That's about the only big difference from the real story, and the information that remains is, as I've stated, very true to the facts. The film quality could be better, the dialogue often sounds a little too quiet, and the acting of several characters IS a bit hammy, but it's not overboard. In my opinion, this is a flawed but ultimately honest and serious look into one of America's most remembered serial killers. I think it's safe to say the film is memorable as well, and I respect it for overcoming its limitations to deliver the story in a believable manner, aided by a thoroughly excellent Carl Crew as Dahmer.

"The Secret Life" starts with the worst possible narrative intro: "The crimes committed by Jeffrey Dahmer are too horrible to make a film about...". Okay, so what are you suggesting? That we shouldn't bother to continue watching as the film won't be accurate or bloody, anyway? And they were right, too! The film isn't the least bit shocking and contains almost no blood or gore at all. Although I think that's mainly due to the low budget production values and not because of Dahmer's crimes being too horrific. Basically, "The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer" is just one sequence repeated over and over again. Young, pitiful and mentally confused Jeffrey picks up victims (always males, as he was a homosexual), kills them and then talks about how it wasn't his intention to hurt them and about how lonely he is. This gets boring really quick and even the admirable performance by unknown actor Carl Crew can't save this movie from being a total dud. Still, this version is much better than the pretentious and hopelessly muddled "Dahmer" that got released in 2002.

The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer is slightly interesting, but it goes around in circles too much. It never really taps into his mind, or shows why he is, what he is. It just shows Dahmer luring countless victims, and that's it. The special they did on Dahmer on the show Mugshots, was much more informational and interesting. Overall, slightly interesting, but the special they did on the show Mugshots, is far better. ** (out of four)

Considering the type of films one usually comes across produced on this low of a budget, Dahmer "The Secret Life", is suprisingly well made. Despite it's shortcomings;tedious scripting and dialouge, sub-par cinematography, and repetative scene structure-(i.e. two or three run-throughs of Dahmer's modus operendii would have been more than sufficient.) definate high points do shine through. Carl Crew's acting job held my interest till the end. Special make-up effects were better than I've seen on alot of "Big Budget" movies. The producers seem to have spent most of the limited funds where it counts most anyway. Overall, I'd rate this movie with three out of a possible four stars.