Netflix Announces “Dahmer” Sequel – But Does It Really Fit?

As a teaser and the official announcement reveal, will be the sequel to the Netflix megahit”Dahmer – Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dahmer‘ focus on brothers Lyle and Erik Menéndez. They murdered their parents together in 1989. After their arrest in 1990, sensational trials followed, which were even broadcast on TV and only ended in 1996 in a life sentence without prospect of parole.

As with the Dahmer series, Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan are executive directors of Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story. Once again, Netflix wants to add at least one accompanying documentary format to the series. The streaming service has already announced that it will be getting exclusive access to the Menéndez brothers and getting them on camera.

Nothing is yet known about the casting for the Netflix series. The series will come to the streaming service in 2024 – the rest of the text is now a personal opinion of the author of these lines on the choice of subjects, which seems very inappropriate for the title “Monster”, but still can be material for a complex series.

Opinion: The Menéndez brothers are not Jeffrey Dahmer!

It makes sense that Netflix would want to follow the infamous Jeffrey Dahmer with a story that made similar headlines, was discussed in the same way, and was famous. The story of the Menendez brothers meets this requirement. It is one of the most high-profile murder cases in the United States. When Oliver Stone strings together various fragments of TV coverage of real criminal cases at the end of “Natural Born Killers”, fragments of the Menéndez brothers are also part of his media critique of the mass media’s glorification of such murders. But the Menéndez brothers are very different from a Jeffery Dahmer.

Dahmer was a serial killer, killed more than a dozen complete strangers in front of him. The Menéndez brothers committed two murders – they killed their parents. Although the jury concluded in their final conviction that they did this to get their parents’ money (and they spent much of it in the months following the crimes), they always defended themselves with a self-defense stance. They claimed to have been abused by their parents in various ways throughout their lives. Erik, the youngest of the brothers, was sexually abused by his father. When they threatened to go public, the father threatened to kill them. They were just ahead of him. In fact, money was not an issue.

Menéndez’s story: a subject as interesting as it is complex

There are many indications that the abuse really took place – although it is of course unclear whether he or not the money or both together were the motive for the crimes. The abuse played no role at the time for the jury. In one of the many court cases, a prosecutor even argued that the story couldn’t be true because it didn’t involve rape of men. So there is an incredible amount to discover in a very complex series…

… with the risk that little of it is secured and you inevitably have to choose sides. Do you follow the statements and protests of two murderers and accept their explanation of the actions? Or do you keep writing the previous official version of what happened, even though it’s pretty obvious it doesn’t tell the whole story. Navigating in between is not easy, which makes “Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story” a very difficult case, which is also extremely exciting at the same time.

But somehow, in my opinion, the title remains very problematic. It may be that at the end of the Netflix series it turns out that the “Monsters” from the series title are the parents and not the brothers, but of course the full title “Monsters: The Lyle And Erik Menendez Story” refers to the two convicted murderers .

Most importantly, this title aligns you directly with Jeffrey Dahmer simply by the status of the new series as a sequel or second season of Dahmer: Monster: The Story of Jeffrey Dahmer. That this is a very problematic comparison should hopefully be clear after these lines. I think it would have been better not to tell the “Menendez story” under the “Monsters” umbrella, but in an independent series and to dedicate the next “Monsters” story to one of the many serial killers who better line up. would stand Jeffrey Dahmer.