Fresh Meat: Jeffrey Dahmer

As someone who watches far too many crime docs, specifically murder docs, I thought I knew disturbing. This was hard to watch. So many disgusting and gruesome details I had never heard from this case. It's a 1/10 if you like light hearted crime docs it's a 10/10 if you want to know the grisly details and inner workings of serial killers minds.

The constant switching between the story and the people commenting made this hyped out documentary highly annoying. This Zebrowski guy looks and sounds like a sociopath himself. Nancy Glass looks scary, Ben Kissel looks hyperactive and so do all the others but for maybe 2. Why use so many storytellers? Switching back and forth gives the whole thing a fidgety feel to a degree that it's hard to focus on the actual story. And why sidetrack to other killers and make it even more distracting.

The narrator sounds like someone who polished his deep and meaningful voice in the 1970s, and was dug up especially for this. The talking heads (whoever they are) come across as worryingly psychotic themselves, with twitches, combovers and wonky eyes. Very hard to watch. Not for the content, but for the weirdos involved.

I can't believe this wasn't made decades ago. Not something I could recommend, or bother to watch again.

This is a high level documentary about things you knew about Dahmer. Enthusiasts will quickly note the lack of relevant details: Dahmer acting out his mother's seizures, hamming it up in class to get attention, his offerings of meat to neighbors who still aren't quite sure what they got, etc. And then for some reason this documentary has a B-story of other random other killers who may or may not have eaten people. So every few bullet points in the Dahmer timeline, you'll be treated to an even higher level quick run through of different crimes and will have learned next to nothing about them before the documentary gives you whiplash by loosely relating them to Dahmer. Throughout the witness interviews, you also get to listen to podcasters recount some facts about Dahmer but they aren't allowed to be entertaining. Their talents in making the macabre somewhat palatable is directed and edited away so you don't even get a little levity while hearing about murders. Don't watch this to learn anything. Watch it cuz Henry says, "That's when the cannibalism started."

This is my second Tubi documentary I've seen, the first being the adequate-but-standard Amityville doc.

Netflix did Bundy, Peacock did Gacy, now Tubi throws its towel in the serial killer doc genre with Dahmer. How do they fair?

Sadly, not well. Fresh Meat is a frenetic, fast paced 88 minute Cliffs Notes biography. The editing style is of the early 2000s History Channel highly-edited flashy style that has faded from popularity. I almost turned the doc off within the first 3 minutes when the soundtrack was a constant barrage of swooshes, stabs and slam sound effects you hear in movie trailers.

What about the interviews? The Amityville doc featured an annoying amount of tik tok videos but it's subjects were mostly people relating to the events. Fresh Meat really only has three worthwhile interviews - Dahmers next door neighbor, a drag Queen the knew two victims and a one of the women who tried saving 13th victim Konerak Sinthasomphone. The rest largely consists of True Crime podcasters relaying the story between our deep-voiced narrators segments. There's also a licensed therapist/porn star who tells us what fetishes and kinks Dahmer had.

Even more annoying is the constant sidebars into other serial killers. For example, we go several minutes into killer Luka Magnotta (subject of Don't F With Cats) because "He craved publicity, unlike Dahmer" or Ed Gein because "Like Dahmer, he kept body parts as trophys". These segments take a few minutes each and come off as nothing more than padding.

Fresh Meat provides nothing new to the story, nor is it a captivating watch. It seems geared towards the younger crowd who listen to My Favorite Murder or watch Buzzfeed Unsolved while completely offputting the much larger True Crime aficionado crowd that enjoys the much more respectful, slow paced shows such as the new Unsolved Mysteries, Son(s) of Sam, or American Murder.