Featured Image Credit: Archivio GBB/Alamy Netflix
Topics: True Crime, Netflix
Emma Guinness
Netflix's Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has been horrifying (and quite frankly disgusting) viewers all the world over since it dropped two days ago.
The retelling of the serial killer's crimes has also got viewers wondering how much of the now hit show is based on reality, and the answer is a lot.
Watch the trailer for the show that's got everyone talking below:
The killer, known as the Milwaukee Monster, had an obsession with the classic horror film, The Exorcist, and this was very much inspired by fact.
In the first episode of the show, which works backwards from the point of Dahmer's 1991 undoing, he can be seen showing one of his victims, Tracy Edwards, The Exorcist III: Legion (1990), as he desperately thinks of ways to escape Dahmer's apartment.
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Dahmer then tells him that he loves the film and 'watches it every day'.
This scene was based on reality too, as Edwards escaped the killer and was able to later testify that he made him watch the film.
Edwards also testified that Dahmer strongly related to the villain of The Exorcist III, The Gemini Killer (Brad Dourif), who was partially inspired by the Zodiac Killer.
He reportedly related to him so much that he took inspiration from his body disposal methods and applied them to his own murders.
In The Exorcist III (which gained total notoriety after Dahmer's trial), the killer has an obsession with keeping trophies from his victims - namely, their heads.
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Needless to say, Dahmer did this too.
As is shown in the new Netflix series, Dahmer also had an obsession with the physiological aspects of death, and this too is a love shared by the Gemini Killer, who discusses draining a corpse of blood prior to decapitation.
When Dahmer's obsession with the film became public knowledge, some argued that it shouldn't be held up as a horror classic anymore, ScreenRant reported.
It also added weight to the rumours that the production of The Exorcist films was cursed, which began after a murder became associated with the first instalment, released in 1973.
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The killing was carried out by a man, Paul Bateson, who played a nurse in the film, and he was unable to explain why he chose to take a reporter's life when later questioned.
As if that wasn't terrifying enough, there was also a significant fire that burned down the majority of The Exorcist set - with the exception of the bedroom belonging to its possessed main character, Regan Teresa MacNeil.