Dahmer: The Mind Is A Place Of Its Own

Handsomely photographed and well acted, this low-key thriller chronicles the misdeeds of notorious Milwaukee serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (1960-98), including murder, dismemberment, necrophilia and cannibalism. Though slicker and more conspicuously aestheticized, it recalls the controversial HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1989) in its dispassionate recounting of truly awful crimes and its guardedly empathetic (as opposed to sympathetic) stance. The film's title, cribbed from Milton's Paradise Lost, is the key: "The mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." Without employing obvious subjective techniques, it ...