Five things we know about Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer in New Netflix True Crime Series

Netflix has dropped some freaky images from their upcoming true crime drama, Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, starring Evan Peters in the title role.

You might not recognise Evan Peters, who was cast back in early 2021, from previous roles as Quicksilver in X-Men or Stan Bowes in the FX series Pose.

The 10-episode series has finally wrapped and gets a Netflix release date on September 21st. Here’s what we know so far!

Evan Peters is no stranger to the showrunners

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, was created by Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan. Murphy was one of the co-creators of American Horror Story.

Evan Peters portrayed multiple characters across various seasons of American Horror Story and is no stranger to playing dark characters.

His time on the show saw him play a ghost, a human oddity, and a cult leader. He even played a serial killer in the Hotel episode, in which he built a hotel solely to hide the bodies of his victims!

Murphy was also a showrunner on the FX show Pose, from 2018 to 2021, which also starred Peters.

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, is NOT a documentary

There have been some good Jeffrey Dahmer documentaries in the past, and perhaps we are due another one, but the new Netflix series is not a documentary.

The 10-episode drama series focuses on the life of Jeffrey Dahmer and the crimes that he committed.

“You can have all the backstory you want, but at the end of the day we’re not making a documentary. It’s more about maintaining the idea and the through line of why you’re telling the story and always having that as your guiding light. But there’s so much material for Dahmer that I think it’s incredibly important to make it really authentic.” Evan Peters, in discussion with Variety.

The series will focus on police failings

There were many instances where Jeffrey Dahmer was allowed to carry on killing when he could have been caught.

The Monster series is said to focus on at least ten police failings, which means it’s likely each episode will detail one of them.

Alongside the police failings, Monster is expected to explore white privilege. There were numerous instances where police and judges showed leniency, allegedly because of his good looks.

One of Dahmer’s neighbour’s called police numerous times and even tried to contact the FBI to let them know what Dahmer was doing. And on each occasion, the complaints and reports were ignored.

It will be fascinating to see how the series deals with the multiple police failings.

Jeremy Renner once played Jeffrey Dahmer

Bit of a curveball, but that’s what this site is all about! Yep, you read that right, Jeremy Renner of Hawkeye and Avengers fame once played Dahmer.

If you’re looking for an early 2000s movie interpretation of Dahmer, or just want to see Jeremy Renner ham it up then it’s available to watch on Amazon Prime.

It’s an average watch but fascinating given it was released 20 years ago, and more relevant now with the new series on the way.

Curious fact of the day: Jeremy Renner and Evan Peters both play Dahmer and have both appeared in Marvel films.

Dahmer is one of the most infamous serial killers in history

It was the way in which he killed his 17 victims and kept their bodies that would go on to shock the world.

He was only 18 when he claimed his first victim, a hitchhiker named Steven Hicks. He killed Hicks by slamming a dumbbell weight into his head, then went on to mutilate, dissect and dissolve the body. Dahmer spread the remains throughout the family garden.

It would be another nine years before he killed again. All his victims were male, and all were mutilated, dissected, and dissolved.

I think in some way, I wanted it to end. Even it meant my own destruction.

Dahmer

That a killer would be able to hide the murder for nine years is horrific enough. But the longer that Dahmer wasn’t punished for his crimes, the more powerful he would have felt, and the more victims he claimed.

In 1992, he was convicted of 16 murders and sentenced to 957 years in prison but was killed by another inmate in November of 1994.

His killer has never been identified. Dahmer’s horrific legacy lives on to this day in books, films, music and pop culture.

The new Netflix series airs on September 21st 2022.