Ryan Murphy’s lurid, grisly and not particularly incisive dramatic series “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story” is the No. 1 TV show on Netflix and amassed more than 196 million viewing hours in its first week of release, even as controversy erupted around the project, with the family members of some Dahmer victims saying the series exploits the memories of their loved ones. Just two weeks after the debut of “Monster,” Netflix is releasing “Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes,” a three-part documentary series featuring Dahmer’s own words and the usual collection of interviews, archival footage, crime-scene stills and soft-focus re-enactments.
While the series can be compelling, and it’s still shocking after all this time to hear the details of Dahmer’s horrific crimes, about halfway through I began to wonder: Is this really necessary? Are we learning anything new about this monster? The hook in “Monster” is that we’re hearing Dahmer’s own voice in previously unreleased tapes, but do those recordings provide anything beyond satisfying a certain morbid curiosity? I’m not so sure.
