MY FRIEND DAHMER

Running time

The sheer bland mundanity of the young serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer is what makes this refreshingly oddball American indie comedy-drama all the more amusing – and also desperately disturbing. Dahmer is played with chilling precision by Ross Lynch (who made his name as a young performer in Disney television shows) as the film sees him evolve from alienated outsider to potential murderer.

It is based on the 2012 graphic novel of the same name by John ‘Derf’ Backderf – who had been friends with Dahmer in real life at their high school in Bath, Ohio, in the 1970s. And it works strikingly as a portrait of a rather spooky character (Dahmer is all floppy blond hair, big glasses and a bland personality) whose home life with bickering parents (Anne Heche is great as his pillpopping mother) is more than a little dysfunctional.

The film smartly never tries to work out what made him kill, but instead just shows how amusingly – and scarily – dull he was.