Jeremy Renner does a capable job of portraying Dahmer without playing it as a caricature. Artel Kayaru does an excellent job as Rodney, the close call that gets away. In the main thrust of the plot we see the night Jeffrey Dahmer crossed his path and lured him back to his apartment. Rodney innocent of the fact that a fresh kill is lying in the bed in the next room.

There are at least three other scenes worth mentioning in this horrifying yet fascinating story. One is the now infamous occasion when one of Dahmer's would be victims manages to get away, but in a drug induced state, only to be handed back to the killer by the police. This scene, in particular, points out the inherent racism and homophobia that allowed Dahmer to go undetected for so long. As he later tells Rodney 'You're just mad because you're gay and black. You're at the bottom.' Another gripping moment occurs when a young Jeffrey is afraid to let his father see the contents of his old chemistry set. After convincing his father that it contains pornographic material we are shown that, in fact, it contains a human head. Perhaps the best scene concerns his first murder. Dahmer picks up a hitchhiker and eventually kills him then must figure out a way to dispose of the body. We see his revulsion at first when he must hack the body to pieces on the kitchen floor but it quickly turns to indifference. Before our eyes a serial killer is born.

Some may argue that Jacobson comes dangerously close to asking for sympathy for the devil. I guess it depends on whether you believe evil is innate or a learned behavior. All he is really saying is that, like it or not, Dahmer was a human being just like you or I and perhaps the knowledge that the spectrum of human behavior includes such atrocities is too much for some to think about.

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