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Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dammer: Brilliant storytelling, successful characterization

author:Sanshu 8148

Probably no one would have thought that Ryan Murphy's new work "Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dammer" would actually break the record and become one of the most watched TV series in Netflix history, with a total of nearly 200 million viewing hours in the first week, second only to the super popular TV series such as "Squid Game" and "Stranger Things Season 4".

We know that Ryan Murphy's work has been a bit erratic in recent years, and both the deteriorating and increasingly "thriller" American Horror Story series and Ratchett are challenging the audience's endurance.

In such a situation, he and his old partner Evan Peters have handed over such a brilliant report card, and even reached the good performance of their golden combination before the third season of "American Horror Story".

Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dammer: Brilliant storytelling, successful characterization

The TV series is another Netflix "strange case" story, telling the story of Jeffrey Dammer, the notorious serial killer in American history, but it is not a reproduction of a lot of bloody and brutal scenes.

As a serial murder theme, there are not many bloody scenes, but it is indeed surprising to focus on describing the inner world of this murderous maniac.

Ryan Murphy has always been the best at describing strange and chaotic gods with some strange case-like themes, but he often has an idea in the air, and in the end it is better to go on with a mess.

The TV series is based on real people and real events, and even analyzes the story of the murderous maniac for more than thirty years in a pathological and real way - so real that the victim's family is uneasy.

Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dammer: Brilliant storytelling, successful characterization

The whole TV series is not narrated in a straight line chronological order, it seems to be very jumpy, and the ending has been revealed in the first episode, recalling all the characters and stories that are related, and the filming is orderly.

I thought that the plot without explanation and hastily ended would eventually have a perfect echo and coherence, and the structure appeared to be quite complete.

If the show is seen in the way of "real people and real events", you may feel that this is a suspicion of "whitewashing" the murderer, but if you can comfort yourself, this is just a TV series, and the story does have a very good performance in shaping the inner world of this murderer.

Ivan Peters is like a magic performance, the role is both love and hate, delicate eyes and small actions, vividly play the character's complex and contradictory inner world, is his second outstanding "perverted" performance after the first few seasons of "American Horror Story".

Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dammer: Brilliant storytelling, successful characterization

Jeffrey Damo was born into an incomplete family, his parents divorced from an early age, and he had a constant quarrel, leaving him with a penchant for dissection. Jeffrey Damo has been in a lonely state for many years, and his sexual orientation makes it difficult for him to speak, so he is trapped in long-term depression.

One day, he accidentally killed people, tasted the taste of dismemberment for the first time, and began to embark on this "no return" road, even in his grandmother's home, he continued to commit crimes, burying his own behavior with one lie after another, and after leaving home, he intensified his efforts, and his home became his "butcher playground".

The neighbor knows that Jeffrey Damo has an ulterior secret in his home, and he has repeatedly called the police for help, but every night he hears a strange noise coming from the neighbor...

01. The ending of the story has been revealed as early as the first episode, but the clever narrator has made the show extremely follow-up

Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dammer: Brilliant storytelling, successful characterization

Netflix can be called "strange case platform", more than half of the subject matter belongs to this type, even most of the documentaries are so, the audience has long been accustomed to watching, tired of watching these strange cases, such as "Nightcrawler", "Don't mess with the cat: hunt down the cat abuser" and other masterpieces, watching more will feel that this Netflix station is really a bit "perverted".

These documentaries have had a large number of reenactment clips of cases, and it has a different feeling when made into a TV series.

In fact, the show is not like the outside world's evaluation of the divine drama, the plot occasionally has sand and stone, the last two episodes are also a bit of a sense of procrastination, of course, it is undeniable that the overall layout is definitely a high-level work.

Its deliberate dismantling of the timing of the prelude not only makes the story more suspenseful, but also has a higher degree of follow-up, which is what Netflix is best at, so that the audience can't help but watch episode after episode to catch up with the pleasure, but also to achieve the effect that each episode has a focus and each episode has a climax.

Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dammer: Brilliant storytelling, successful characterization

The show does not describe the process of the protagonist's brutal killing, at best only the perspective of the survivors of the first episode, describing how he escaped from the clutches of the devil, and also let the TV series reveal the ending in the first episode, the demon will eventually be arrested and eventually arrested.

In this way, the main line of the show is different from the Netflix similar documentaries describing the hunting process, and it goes back to dissecting the path of this "monster" to become a demon.

02. The show is quite successful in shaping the characters, and it really puts a lot of effort into it

For a film and television art work, the play creates a murderous inner world, which is indeed a good example.

Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dammer: Brilliant storytelling, successful characterization

Although Hollywood's "legendary murder mania" growth path is inseparable from their own defects, lack of family warmth, childhood was unbearable, etc., these are all in the show, but it does not look a little cheesy.

The story tries to analyze the protagonist's family, campus, emotional road, or his own natural "perverted" gene, the murderer has unspeakable pain behind him, he is also a poor person since childhood, lack of friends, lack of love, he wants to "attract people's attention" through various strange behaviors, let him embark on the road to becoming a demon, to dismember to "raise a corpse", nothing more than a twisted desire to have a "person" who can accompany him forever and never give up.

Although this kind of thinking is also "perverted" in any way, the play tries to give the protagonist an emotional outlet, indicating that he is also a person who longs for love, whether it is a relationship with his father or a relationship with a hearing-impaired person who loves from killing intentions, which makes the character image extremely clear.

Of course, Ivan Peters' superb acting skills are of great merit, and the discussion of this murderer behind the script is also full of drama, not to reduce the story to a work of blind killing and showing off blood, and under the theme of violence, there is also an "alternative humanization" side.

Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dammer: Brilliant storytelling, successful characterization

The drama is by no means a TV series that feels comfortable, nor is it a thriller and exciting work of blood plasma, and the emotions will be extremely depressed when watching, but there is a magic that people can't help but watch.

The timing of the TV series is quite jumpy, sometimes it is the protagonist's childhood, sometimes it is the process of his trial after his arrest, and then interspersed with the trivial things that happened during his undergraduate and military careers, these plots are not just a section of the branch, the selected fragments are all needed by the plot.

How to shape such a demon head from the bits and pieces of the past, and these past have a compact position, or the viewpoint of the victim, or the viewpoint of the protagonist, so that the TV series is more appropriately drawn, so that the story even if the timing is chaotic, it does not look chaotic at all, but it is smooth and natural.

The success of making such a super bold story is not to blindly show off the blood and recreate the tragic situation, but to describe the protagonist's bold behavior through imagery and metaphor, such as the strange noises heard by neighbors, the unknown big plastic bags, the uneasy sandwiches and so on.

Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dammer: Brilliant storytelling, successful characterization

These only give one shot, can already create the desired effect, just such a brutal theme, the show's presentation method is restrained and can achieve the effect.

03. Ivan Peters is the hero of the show

Without Ivan Peters, the show's watchability would have been greatly reduced.

The actor and creator Ryan Murphy have worked together since the first season of "American Horror Story", and can even be said to be a gold medal combination, as long as Ivan Peters returns, "American Horror Story" is rotten, everyone is still willing to "go into the pit".

Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dammer: Brilliant storytelling, successful characterization

Ivan Peters once said that he didn't want to play "American Horror Story" again, all because the plot was too "perverted" and bothered his spirit, but I think the show is even worse.

This is definitely a bold character, and I believe he also knows that he will be under attack. This is obviously a perverted murderer, but still have to play the pain of this role, Ivan Peters fully played the loneliness required for the role, often because of his distrust of people, in the same scene, from tenderness to killing.

His performance can be very brutal, the silent killing intention does make him shudder, but the role has two sides, the emptiness of private life, the helplessness of being betrayed, the performance is gripping.

Especially in the episode of the hearing-impaired, the tenderness, fear, uneasiness, hatred, and killing intent revealed in his eyes, and the tangled mood was suddenly up and down, and even the eyebrows were full of drama; The delicate facial expression coupled with various small actions to successfully control a super-complex role is completely a visual performance, and I only hope that he will not be stereotyped from then on.

Whether the drama meets the level of divine drama or not, it is remarkable. The drama is quite outstanding in all aspects, whether it is to restore the case or the plot, it can achieve a strong follow-up.

Unfortunately, the issues of the show are too complex. In addition to depicting the character of Jeffrey Damo, he also criticized the U.S. government's misconceptions about minorities, its neglect of the lower classes, and even the protection of officials and officials, and even wanted to use this crazy murder case to explore religious issues.

Originally, the protagonist's thought transformation process was rich enough, but he still had to knock on these details, resulting in the plot occasionally losing focus, and the last two episodes tried to get to the core of the problem, but it was difficult to explain it well.

After all, reality also "does not" fairness and justice, so it seems to be excessively greedy; Justice is difficult to perform, but it can't make any drama, and the relevant plot really does not need to be filmed so lengthy.

Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dammer: Brilliant storytelling, successful characterization

All in all, "Monsters: The Story of Jeffrey Dammer" has become a recent phenomenon, and it will not disappoint you to "go into the pit", and Ryan Murphy has indeed done a pretty good job of the show.

Ten episodes of the story, the ending may be a bit lengthy, but the plot of the first eight episodes, both narrative and shooting techniques, is the best quality, and Ivan Peters's superior performance has successfully given depth to the role and played the reasons behind the "perversion" inside and outside the play.

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