Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story

Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is the first season of the American biographical crime drama anthology television series Monster, created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan for Netflix, which was released on September 21, 2022. Murphy and Brennan both serve as showrunners. Dahmer is about the life of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (Evan Peters). Other main characters include Dahmer's father, Lionel (Richard Jenkins), his stepmother Shari (Molly Ringwald), suspicious neighbor Glenda (Niecy Nash), and grandmother Catherine (Michael Learned).

Dahmer received mixed reviews, but was ultimately a commercial success, reaching the number-one spot on Netflix in the first week of its release. The season became Netflix's second most-watched English-language series of all time within 28 days, and the third Netflix series to pass 1 billion hours viewed in 60 days. The series reached number one on the Nielsen Top 10 streaming chart in the first week of its release, and placed No. 7 on Nielsen's all-time list for single-week viewership in its second week.

The season received four nominations at the 80th Golden Globe Awards, including for the Best Limited or Anthology Series or Television Film, with Peters winning for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film. It received six nominations at the 75th Primetime Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series and Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for Peters. Ultimately, Nash won for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.

The second season of the anthology, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (2024), is based on the murder case of the Menendez brothers and was released on September 19, 2024. The third season of the anthology, Monster: The Ed Gein Story (2025), is based on the murders committed by Ed Gein and was released on October 3, 2025.

Synopsis

The season focuses on the life of Jeffrey Dahmer, and how he became one of the most notorious serial killers in America. His murders were executed in Bath Township, Ohio, West Allis, Wisconsin, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin between 1978 and 1991. The season dramatizes instances where Dahmer was nearly apprehended until his ultimate conviction and death. It also explores how police racial bias and apathy contributed to enabling his crimes.

Cast and characters

Main

• Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer, the titular serial killer
  • Nick A. Fisher as young Jeffrey
• Richard Jenkins as Lionel Dahmer, Jeffrey's father
  • Josh Braaten as young Lionel
• Molly Ringwald as Shari Dahmer, Lionel's second wife and Jeffrey's stepmother
• Niecy Nash-Betts as Glenda Cleveland, Jeffrey's neighbor
• Michael Learned as Catherine Dahmer, Jeffrey's paternal grandmother

Recurring

Soundtrack

The score for the season was composed and performed by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. The soundtrack album was released the same day as the series.

Episodes

Reception

Audience viewership

The season rose to the number one spot on Netflix in the first week of its release. In the second week of its release, Netflix announced that Dahmer was its ninth most popular English-language TV show of all time, with 56 million households having viewed all 10 episodes. The season remained number-one for weeks and became Netflix's second most-viewed English Netflix season of all time, and the fourth highest across any language with 701.37 million hours viewed in 21 days. The season amassed more than 865 million hours viewed in the first 28 days of its release. In 60 days it became the third Netflix season to pass 1 billion views.

Dahmer debuted at number-one on the Nielsen Top 10 streaming chart by garnering more than 3.6 billion minutes of viewing for the week of September 19–25, placing it 10th on the all-time list for single-week viewership. The following week, it jumped to No. 7 on the all-time list with 4.4 billion minutes viewed. The season topped Nielsen's streaming chart for the third consecutive week with 2.3 billion viewing minutes.

Jermey Dick of MovieWeb stated that on "October 3rd through the 9th the views of the Dahmer season made up to 205 million hours streamed" into watching the show for that period, overall making it up to "701 million hours watched globally".

Critical response

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 57% approval rating with an average rating of 6.3/10, based on 30 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus says: "While Monster is seemingly self-aware of the peril in glorifying Jeffrey Dahmer, creator Ryan Murphy's salacious style nevertheless tilts this horror story into the realm of queasy exploitation." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 46 out of 100 based on 9 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.

Kayla Cobb at Decider said the show "isn't just well directed, written, and acted. It's rewriting what a crime drama can look like if we stop glorifying murderers and start focusing more on systematic failures." Caroline Framke of Variety argues that the show "simply can't rise to its own ambition of explaining both the man and the societal inequities his crimes exploited without becoming exploitative in and of itself." Malik Peay of the Los Angeles Times stated that those critical of the show felt that the season was emblematic of the "entertainment industry's commercialization of tragedy". Dan Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter praises episode 6 ("Silenced") as "easily the best episode of the series, an uncomfortably sweet and sad hour of TV that probably should have been the template for the entire show [and]...in placing a Black, deaf, gay character at the center of the narrative, the series is giving voice to somebody whose voice has too frequently been excluded from gawking serial killer portraits."

Accolades

Controversies

On September 23, 2022, Netflix removed the season's "LGBTQ" tag after backlash on social media.

The season also received backlash from the families of Dahmer's victims, accusing Netflix of profiting off their traumatic experiences and "retraumatizing [the families] all over again". Eric Perry, a relative of victim Errol Lindsey, stated "I want people to understand this is not just a story or historical fact, these are real people's lives. [Lindsey] was someone's son, someone's brother, someone's friend that was ripped from [our] lives".

Production assistant Kim Alsup alleged mistreatment while on set. She stated she was one of two Black crew members below the line on Dahmer, adding that "I was always being called someone else's name, the only other Black girl who looked nothing like me, and I learned the names for 300 background extras". Alsup also alleged an "exhausting" and "unsupportive environment", stating there were no therapists on set. A spokesperson for Netflix countered this allegation, stating that everyone on set had access to free health and wellness sources, including access to a therapist.

Shirley Hughes, the mother of Tony Hughes, whose story is told in the sixth episode, spoke out against the season's depiction of events. Hughes told The Guardian "It didn't happen like that", and expressed frustration over use of real names in the show.

Future

Having initially ordered the program in 2020 as a limited series, Netflix announced on November 7, 2022, that it had renewed Monster as an anthology series, with two further editions based on the lives of "other monstrous figures" to be announced.

On May 1, 2023, Netflix announced the second season of the series titled Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (2024), which is based on the murder case of the Menendez brothers. On June 29, 2023, Deadline Hollywood reported that Nicholas Alexander Chavez and Cooper Koch were cast as Lyle and Erik Menendez respectively. Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story was released on September 19, 2024.