The movie shows Jeffrey's Dahmer story who had to cope with his unstable mother well-intentioned father.Jeffrey starts the road of evil with a group of band-nerds who form The Dahmer Fan Club, headed by Derf Backderf but he spirals further out of control
Which came first, bullies or dead animals in jars? "Friend" does not say, nor is there a clear link between the discord in Jeff's home and his behavior.
My Friend Dahmer is at its most provocative when it considers this dynamic between the exploiters and the exploited. In making Dahmer feel like a freak, did the boys push him over the edge into a murderous contempt for all people?
As an account of a serial killer, then, My Friend Dahmer doesn't quite work. Instead it is Derf's story, with its uncomfortable mixture of compassion, complicity and retrospective horror, where the film's real strength lies.
Meyers makes "My Friend Dahmer" a convincing high school drama, but his portrait of the serial killer as a young man telegraphs Dahmer's future all too clearly.
