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Toronto After Dark Review: ‘My Friend Dahmer’ is a Dark, Troubled Tale
My Friend Dahmer is probably the scariest non-horror film you’ll see all year. It’s the story of Jeffrey before Dahmer, and it weaves a stunning cautionary tale of a youth in peril.
I had the chance to see My Friend Dahmer as part of this year’s Toronto After Dark lineup, so naturally I jumped at the chance. We’ve been eagerly anticipating this film for quite some time here at iHorror, and it certainly did not disappoint.
A friend of mine has a theory that whenever a scene in shown in a school classroom, the topic of the lesson acts as a general theme or thesis of the film. Director/writer Marc Meyers includes such a scene in a history class, where the teacher pointedly asks “why is history so important?”.
He calls on young Jeffrey Dahmer who avoids the question by what is later referred to as “doing a Dahmer” – a class clown act of putting on a voice or making disruptive noises. His classmates respond with laughter, and the camera focuses on Jeffrey’s surprised, secret smile as he discovers the rare approval of his peers.
The teacher continues on to explain that history is important because we will never truly know ourselves until we study our past. This, truly, is the point of the film. To study Dahmer as he was, the person behind the monster, and the painfully present signs that hid in plain sight.
Jeffrey’s bouts of disruption gain him a group of friends who revel in his oddity, but their relationship quickly grows stale. Like they’ve adopted a pet that grew too fast, or chewed on the furniture a bit too much. Jeffrey’s actions in the film are that of a troubled teen screaming for help, but he is simply pushed further into isolation.
You’re shown a side of teenage vulnerability that makes you begin to empathize with Jeffrey, but there’s still the constant reminders of the darkness that was always there and the terror of what he will become.
Former Disney star Ross Lynch knocks it out of the park with his performance as the titular Dahmer. His dead-eyed expression, hunched shoulders, and stiff shuffle convey the guarded physicality of a young man who struggles with his own existence.
My Friend Dahmer is a well-balanced meal; there are side portions of humor and horror that compliment the bloody, meaty steak of the character’s future. It will remind you of a story you’ve seen before – the potential danger in a troubled teen – but with a harrowing reality you can’t avoid.
Featured image via Filmrise
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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments
It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.
We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.
“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”
That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”
Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:
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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening
Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.
Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.
Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.
Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.
Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.
The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.
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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date
Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.
Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.
These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:
According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”
Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.
Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.
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