Our obsession with serial killers knows no bounds and Netflix have tapped into that once more by offering up one of the most macabre of all time with the debut trailer for DAHMER – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story.

As Netflix cites: “On July 22, 1991, two police officers entered the Milwaukee apartment of Jeffrey Dahmer. Inside, they found several body parts and severed heads in his fridge and freezer, as well as countless polaroids of mutilated bodies.”

Continuing: “Dahmer was arrested and later confessed to gruesomely murdering at least 17 people, mostly young gay men of colour, during a 13-year killing spree that started in 1978.”

This grisly tale of Dahmer’s decrepit psychology will form the backbone of the forthcoming series, as it investigates how he got away with it for so long and the dark factors that fuelled him. 

Evan Peters will take on the role of the serial killer in the forthcoming ten-episode series. Richard Jenkins and Penelope Ann Miller portray Dahmer’s parents, while Molly Ringwald and Michael Learned take up roles as his stepmother and grandmother.

Serial killers are responsible for less than 1% of murders in the US each year, and Scott Bonn, a sociologist at Drew University, estimates there are less than two dozen active at any given time. Yet, our fascination with this tiny, grisly asterisk to society endures, often dwarfing far larger problems, which he puts down to a “kind of cultural hysteria”.

However, DAHMER looks at when that hysteria is subsumed by prejudice. You can check out the trailer below. 

DAHMER — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story will premiere on September 21st on Netflix.