The Jeffrey Dahmer Files Reviews
Top CriticPulls off the seemingly impossible feat of making this horrific crime seem dull.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Capital Times (Madison, WI)
Thompson's film is something really different, a film as polite and as unnerving as its subject, one that burrows down deep into your imagination and stays there.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Times-Picayune
Chilling and riveting, even if it feels as if there are many questions left unanswered.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Blu-ray.com
Thompson accepts quite a burden of informational responsibility, only to generate an aimless, tedious picture that's part documentary, part re-creation, and mostly unenlightening.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
Mesmerizing and haunting, "The Jeffrey Dahmer Files" is an inside-out serial killer movie, lacking in gore or cheap psychology and made in part for those who think they never want to see another serial killer movie.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Shared Darkness
An art collage project that unnecessarily obscures its sizzle and raison d'être when a more straightforward tack would have worked better.
Full Review
| Original Score: C
Compellingly illuminates how the monsters among us leave more than corpses in their wake.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
[It feels] like a late-night cable-news hack job.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
I'm not sure that director and co-writer Chris James Thompson's film sheds any new light on why Dahmer committed his crimes, but I'm also not sure that anything is gained by trying to look too deeply into such a disordered personality.
Thompson assembles his footage with an expert's touch, but what his film lacks is its own perspective on these atrocities.
Slant Magazine
Teasing out a subversive portrait of a complex and rather subdued monster, The Jeffrey Dahmer Files unfolds with the same meticulousness exemplified by the eponymous serial killer.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Reel Film Reviews
...a consistently uneven documentary that could (and should) have been much, much better.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
Achieving an almost trance-like intimacy by paring its array of voices down to the essentials, Chris James Thompson's Jeff stands apart from the true-crime pack.
Too bloodless for the uninitiated and too remedial for the familiar, but still artful in its own right.
Movies.com
Jeff is one of the greatest serial killer movies ever made - an intimate, sobering look at the ripple effect that someone's aberrant behavior can have on the lives of those they come into contact with.
Film School Rejects
Unfortunately, the film lacks any sort of suitable or satisfying entry point for the uninitiated, and might still prove to be a bit obtuse even for those who know what they're getting into.
