Raising Jeffrey Dahmer

This movie is informative, but too bad it looks like it was made using a $1000.00 camera from 1970. It looks just like a home-made movie. The quality is about on the same level as Blair Witch. If you can get past the cheapness of the film, there are some interesting information to be had in this film. Also the acting is really bad, to the point that it hurts you watching it. Still, you are fascinated by Dahmer or his crimes, or if you want to know what the big fuss is about Milwaukee's most popular serial killer, give this movie a watch.

We have 3 cats and 2 dogs. I think we could have organized them to do a better re-enactment of Jeffrey Dahmer's childhood than this film. The movie is 100 minutes long; we made it 60 minutes--so, to be fair, I haven't even seen the whole movie. I just couldn't bear it. This looks like a film put together by a group of high school students in a movie-making class. And not even high-achieving students. The acting was awful, although I felt a great deal of pity for the actors in this film. They really never had a chance. Lots of corny flashbacks. Not even sure of the film's accuracy based on other things I've heard and read on Dahmer. I have to say...might be the worst movie I've ever seen. I can't believe this was even in the video store. Please, spare yourself! Avoid this one at all costs!

Snooty, pompous, and pointless. This movie makes a very weak attempt to use art-house-style drama to represent the story of Dahmer. I actually got fooled into initially thinking that it was a documentary. The cover is somewhat misleading in this regard, and, if you make the same mistake I did, then you will be super-disappointed. The acting is poor, the film-work is poor, even the soundtrack is corny and revolting. There is nothing in this movie that is good. The only good thing that happened was when my flatmate walked in front of the TV and obscured my vision. I gave Raising Jeffrey Dahmer 1 star because I was forced to by the system. My real rating is definitely in the negatives. To the movie maker: Why oh why did you do this? To the consumer: Do NOT buy this. Spend your money on ANYTHING else.

One would assume that a movie named "Raising Jeffrey Dahmer" would deal largely with his childhood. Instead, the movie begins with his arrest and deals largely with the stress of his parents face trying to deal with the media. There are flashbacks to childhood events, but they are short, stylized, and presented out of chronological order. They are more distracting and confusing than they are enlightening. The step-mother is played in a very distant, emotionless manner that makes it impossible to determine what she is going through and difficult to sympathize with her. The father spends most of the film being shown reacting to discoveries and incidents so we do not have an opportunity to get close to him either. His emotional range was too one-dimensional to get a clear picture of who he really is as a person. The movie is somewhat interesting, but it didn't live up to it's potential. I expected to see Jeffrey raised through childhood complete with all the clues and hints about how he might turn out. I expected to see a film that puts us in the place of the parents and allows us to feel the struggle between a parents unconditional love for a child and reconciling the horrible crimes committed by the child. I would have enjoyed this as a straight documentary or as a revealing, emotional docudrama. Instead, the director chose to focus on being artsy. I didn't hate this film, but I was left very disappointed.

RAISING JEFFREY DAHMER is a poorly executed film, well below the level of Student Film, yet it does manage to touch on some provocative issues. RAISING JEFFREY DAHMER is not really concerned with the heinous murders and kidnappings that Dahmer committed, but seeks to examine his relationship with his family. The film forces the viewer to consider a few extremely difficult positions. Can a parent continue to love a child who is a convicted sexual predator, murderer, and cannibal? Also, Dahmer's behavior could be viewed as someone who was deeply repulsed, yet morbidly attracted to men. Dahmer did admit that the reason he killed and dismembered was to reassemble the parts, and then, create sexual slaves for his personal ratification. I wonder if this psychotic sexual identity might have been caused by something in his upbringing, and had his family encouraged and accepted his latent homosexual nature, could the killings have been avoided? Did his parents ever consider this? These questions are not really answered in the film, however they are certainly areas worthy of inquiry.