Which Is Better To Watch The Series Or The Movie

 

Image by Nanci Santos on Pixabay

Have you ever wondered if it’s better to watch a movie or a series based on a famous person? Famous people along with influencers and serial killers often have multiple movies and series made based on their life. The ones I will be comparing are a movie and series about a man by the name of Jeffrey Dahmer. He is a well known serial killer that dismembered and murdered young men in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For the people who don’t know and want to learn more about him but don’t want to do research might want to watch movies and series made about him. But the question is which one should they watch, one of the series or one of the movies? There is a movie by the name of My Friend Dahmer and a series by the name of Dahmer Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story. The series made in 2022 consists of 10 episodes, each about an hour long. The movie was made in 2017 and is an hour and 47 minutes long. If you want to spend less time finding out information about him you might want to watch the movie. However, if you want more details and have a lot of time you might want to consider the series instead. Both of these are stories about Jeffrey’s life and what happened to him to make him the person he became. However, a series and a movie aren’t exactly the same. They have some similarities but for the most part, they are different. The biggest similarities is that the story is based on Jeffrey’s life. The series might exaggerate to try and make the story longer and more interesting. The movie on the other hand might not exaggerate as much because it will make their movie a lot longer and often directors want their movies to be viewable in one sitting.

Movie Summary

I will start by giving a brief summary of the movie. The movie is an adaptation of Jeffrey’s high school life. It gives a brief overview on how he was treated by his classmates and what he had to do for his classmates to acknowledge him. The movie mentions that he was acknowledged in two ways. One when he would fake convulsions in the school hallways. The first time he faked a convulsion it was in Spanish class and the very last time it shows him faking a convulsion it was in the mall where his friends made their classmates pay them to see him do an ultimate convulsion. The second way he would get his classmates to acknowledge him was when he appeared in all the club pictures. One of Jeffrey’s friends was part of the yearbook and he agreed that it would be funny if Jeff showed up in every club photo. Jeffrey was later blacked out of all the club photos by a teacher. The movie also focuses on the arguments his parents would get into before the divorce. It also mentions how his mom left with his brother after the divorce was finalized. 

Series Summary

The series on the other hand focused more on his adult life. The first two episodes showed how he got caught and the process they went through when trying to find out who Jeffrey’s victims were. The series also has a brief section in two episodes that focuses more on his childhood and high school experience. It gives flashbacks of when Jeffrey was a kid and how he behaved around his classmates. By the other kids he was considered weird for keeping to himself. It shows how he started getting interested in dismembering animals when he and his dad found roadkill under their house, which his father later examined with him in the garage. This habit of dismembering roadkill continued into his high school years. However the animal dismemberment slowly turned to the dismemberment of humans. The series gives flashbacks to when he was in high school trying not only to fit in with his classmates, but to also be liked by them. The last two episodes were about his trial and how he spent his time in jail. The series tries to highlight the crimes Jeffrey committed and how he came to commit the crimes. I will say the series incorporates a lot of bloody scenes. When Jeff kills his first victim with the barbell at his house we see his victims blood flying onto his face. For the rest of his killings we see the bloody scene that Jeff makes. It also shows how he got caught and what sort of gave him the idea that he enjoyed dismemberment. I personally prefer the series over the movie. The series covers details that you wouldn’t know about if you choose to watch the movie. In comparison the movie only gives an overview of his high school experience and not what he became when he was an adult. It doesn’t signify any details of his life after his parents divorce. The series on the other hand gives details on what Jeffrey did after high school and how he would commit his crimes. It also describes his adult life and how he would spend his free time. If I were to compare both the series and the movie on which one was more historically accurate I would say that the series is more historically accurate. The series gives more details that were known to the public, while the movie gives details that could only be known if you had gone to school with Jeff.

Comparison on Suspense and Scariness

Now I am going to compare the series and the movie based on how suspenseful and scary they were. I would want to say that the series was also more suspenseful because you weren’t sure what the next scene was going to be. I didn’t know if it was going to be a flashback to his childhood or if it was going to be a flashback of when he committed the crimes. In the movie I felt like it was easier to predict what the next scene was going to be since it was mostly just his high school experience. The movie was focused on his high school life and how it was affected by his parents divorce. There was more of an opportunity to see how he was treated by his classmates and how his parents were constantly arguing in front of him and his younger brother. The emphasis of the series was how he spent his adult years, how and when he committed the crimes. The series gave more of an opportunity to see how he led his adult years. It shows how he enlisted in the military and ended up getting honorably discharged. It shows how he had to live with his grandma after getting discharged from the military and how he later decided to move out when his grandma saved one of his possible victim’s lives. Some clear differences that I noticed were the way he started drinking and how his mom left. In the series he starts drinking after his mom left with his brother and when his dad leaves him alone at the house. In the movie however, he starts drinking after his dad gives him a bottle of alcohol to hold while he walks away. In the series his mom leaves abruptly and quickly mentioning how she doesn’t want her ex-husband to see them leave. In the movie she leaves calmly and even says goodbye to Jeff. 

Which One Is More Recommended

Out of these two I feel like I learned more from the series than from the movie. The series had more details about Jeffrey’s life. It explained more about how Jeffrey came to learn how to dismember. From the series and the movie I would recommend the series. It’s more interesting and it gives more details that would make someone understand him more. If I were to compare the acting I would say that the movie has better acting because the actor that plays Jeffrey had to do multiple fake convolution scenes. The performance on the other hand is better in the series. The series has more detailed scenes. For example, there are multiple dismemberment scenes. I feel like people might not want to watch it because it has multiple gross and weird scenes. I would recommend the series if you can handle blood, but if you can’t I would recommend the movie.

By Dalila Cazarez