[1] A limited theatrical release, it is based on the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer, who killed seventeen young men and boys in Bath, Ohio and Milwaukee, Wisconsin between 1978 and 1991.

Troubled by a turbulent childhood and his religious father's denial of his homosexuality, Dahmer lures attractive young men home, where he conducts experiments on and kills them, trying to create a living zombie who will never leave or judge him.

And while it doesn't come up with very compelling answers to that question, it does so as non-exploitively as one could imagine a film about a guy who drugged, sexually abused, murdered and cannibalized 17 young men (most of them poor minorities) might.

[18] Similarly, Robert Koehler of Variety wrote, "Rethinking the serial killer movie in every respect, David Jacobson presents a powerfully cool visualization of a gruesome life in Dahmer.

By de-dramatizing the actions of Jeffrey Dahmer, America's most ghoulish mass murderer, and by refusing to serve up easy psychological motivations or any standard exploiter devices, Jacobson produces a remarkably creepy piece of cinema that disturbs by suggestion, nuance and ambiguity.

"[19] Ed Halter of The Village Voice also praised the "powerfully unsettling" film, writing, "Jacobson has achieved the unthinkable: He humanizes a notoriously brutal psychopath and, in the process, leaves the audience with an unwelcome sense of complicity.

"[20] Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune found that while the film was tasteful, intelligent, and well-acted, it was also too subdued and "stripped-down" in its approach to its salacious subject matter, shying away from depicting anything too revolting or potentially offensive and thus depriving the audience of "crucial knowledge necessary for anything more than a superficial understanding of Dahmer's pathology.

"[21] Andy Klein of the Dallas Observer commended the film's performances and its lack of onscreen sensationalism, but also felt that its "often-deadpan style" failed to reach the heights of similar works like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer.

"[24] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times had a largely negative response to what he felt was a sluggish, contrived, and "glum" film, writing, "Jacobson is skilled with his small cast and mostly leaves to the imagination the outcome of a number of gruesome sequences.

"[26] Similarly, while Maitland McDonagh of TV Guide found Dahmer to be both handsomely photographed and well-acted, she otherwise had a middling response to it, writing, "Ultimately, the film feels a little pointless; if it means only to remind us that every monster comes from somewhere, that's a well-worn observation.