American Horror Story creator Ryan Murphy is teaming up with one of the FX anthology show’s most recurring stars for the latest project to come out of his highly lucrative partnership with Netflix. Murphy has hired Evan Peters to play the title role in Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, a 10-episode limited series which will explore the life of one of the most notorious serial killers in American history.
This show’s unique angle on the story of the infamous murderer is that it will be “largely told from the point of view of Dahmer’s victims.” Niecy Nash is set to play the female lead, Glenda Cleveland, Dahmer’s neighbor who called the police and even the FBI several times over the years in attempt to alert them of his erratic behavior but was continually ignored. As this suggests, Monster will also examine “the police incompetence and apathy that allowed the Wisconsin native to go on a multiyear killing spree.”
Penelope Ann Miller and Richard Jenkins are on board as Dahmer’s parents, Joyce and Lionel, while Shaun J. Brown portrays Tracy, the killer’s last intended victim who managed to escape and inform the authorities, finally bringing his crimes to an end. Monster will stretch across the decades, beginning in the 1960s and concluding with Dahmer’s arrest in the early 1990s.
As per Deadline:
“The series dramatizes at least 10 instances where Dahmer was almost apprehended but ultimately let go. The series also is expected to touch on white privilege, as Dahmer, a clean-cut, good-looking white guy, was repeatedly given a free pass by cops as well as by judges who were lenient when he had been charged with petty crimes.”
Thanks to his many years on AHS, Peters is no stranger to playing psychologically disturbed characters. In fact, he already got to embody an infamous killer in American Horror Story: Cult, in which he portrayed Charles Manson. He was most recently seen on our screens in a very different context, however, returning to the Marvel universe in a fresh, tongue-in-cheek way for Disney Plus’ WandaVision.
Of course, Evan Peters is once again involved in AHS season 10 – subtitled Double Feature – which is coming later this year, while Murphy is also developing anthology spinoff American Horror Stories.
