Getting deep with Marc Meyers on ‘My Friend Dahmer’
Film Daily caught up with director Marc Meyers in 2017 about his adaptation of Derf Backderf’s graphic novel My Friend Dahmer. The conversation covered the project’s origins, the decision to stay faithful to the source, and the choice to film at real locations from Dahmer’s youth. Meyers explained how the story functions as a portrait of the young man before the crimes that would later define his name. The interview remains a clear record of how the film was made and why Meyers approached the material the way he did.
Reception and Legacy
My Friend Dahmer opened at Tribeca in April 2017 before a limited theatrical release that November through FilmRise. Critics responded to the restraint and the focus on high-school dynamics rather than later crimes. The film earned an 86 percent score on Rotten Tomatoes from 105 reviews and a Metacritic score of 68. Worldwide it grossed roughly 1.4 million dollars. The graphic novel itself has stayed in print since its 2012 publication, and the film continues to surface in discussions of true-crime cinema that avoids exploitation.
Director Marc Meyers’ Subsequent Career
After My Friend Dahmer, Meyers directed Human Capital in 2019, We Summon the Darkness later that year, and All My Life in 2020. He also completed How He Fell in Love. These projects kept him working with both period settings and genre elements, areas he first explored on the Dahmer film. He has continued writing and directing while maintaining an active presence online as a filmmaker.
Streaming and Accessibility Today
As of July 2026 the film is available on Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, Pluto TV, AMC+, fuboTV, and Philo, among other services. Physical media editions remain in circulation as well. The multiple streaming options have kept the title accessible to new viewers who want to see the story before the crimes rather than the crimes themselves.
Ross Lynch’s Performance and Career Impact
Ross Lynch was cast as young Dahmer in 2016, marking a clear break from his earlier Disney work. Reviewers noted that his performance made the character familiar enough to unsettle audiences. The role positioned Lynch as an actor willing to take on darker material, and it remains one of the performances most closely tied to the film’s reception.
Meyers stayed close to Backderf’s account throughout production. He filmed at the actual Dahmer family home and secured a high school that matched the era’s architecture. Production design and practical details, from running period cars to keeping the cast’s hair long, reinforced the time-capsule approach. The director avoided turning the 1970s into caricature and instead used reference photography to keep the environment grounded.
The film never shows the murders. Meyers explained that the tension comes from watching what might happen rather than what does. By leaving certain acts off screen, the story forces viewers to imagine the possibilities based on the behavior already shown. Captions before the credits supply the factual record of Dahmer’s later crimes so the audience can connect the teenager on screen to the man he became.
Meyers described the so-called Dahmer Fan Club as both friends and bullies. He noted that teenagers often act without realizing the effect of their behavior. The film presents those relationships as ordinary high-school dynamics that later take on heavier meaning. The director also spoke about the missed signals from family, teachers, and neighbors, framing the story as one in which warning signs went unheeded.
When asked about future projects at the time, Meyers mentioned interest in other graphic novels and stories about real people. In the years since, he has followed through on that direction with the films already mentioned. He has continued to work at the intersection of character drama and genre techniques that first interested him on My Friend Dahmer.
