Monster on Netflix: Was Jeffrey Dahmer really obsessed with The Exorcist III?
By Mads Lennon
The first episode of Netflix’s new Ryan Murphy series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story has an interesting scene where serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer (Evan Peters) coaxes his victim, 32-year-old Tracy Edwards (Shaun J. Brown), into watching The Exorcist III: Legion with him. Dahmer claims he loves the movie and “watches it every day.”
It would be weird enough if a serial killer was obsessed with The Exorcist to the point of watching it every day, but why the third movie? To be fair to William Peter Blatty’s movie trilogy, the third movie was far better received than the panned second film, The Exorcist II: The Heretic, but it still feels random.
Is Dahmer’s obsession with the third move in Blatty’s “Faith Trilogy” true or did the writers make up that interesting fact for the show?
Monster: Was Jeffrey Dahmer obsessed with The Exorcist III in real life?
They say truth is stranger than fiction for a reason and no one proves that more than Jeffrey Dahmer. Yes, he actually was obsessed with The Exorcist III. Not only that, but Monster‘s take on what happened the night Dahmer took Edwards home (which led to the killer’s eventual arrest) appears to be accurate, right down to Dahmer making Edwards watch the movie with him.
Since Edwards survived, he was later able to tell his story and his real account of the night matches very closely with what was depicted in the Netflix series.
As for why Dahmer loved The Exorcist III, to the point of forcing his victims to watch it, the reason is just as creepy as you might expect. Dahmer reportedly identified strongly with the movie’s fictional killer, The Gemini Killer, played by Brad Dourif in the movie. Ironically, the Gemini Killer was at least partially inspired by another real serial killer, the Zodiac Killer.
Screen Rant further dissected the frightening connection between Dahmer and The Exorcist III, identifying some of the eerie similarities between how the Gemini Killer and Dahmer would dispose of their victims.
"In The Exorcist III, The Gemini Killer referenced retaining heads and keeping parts from his victims. Dahmer’s fascination with how the human body functioned likely bled over into his obsession with the fictional Exorcist character since The Gemini Killer talked extensively about how to drain the blood from a body before decapitation."
Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story is now streaming on Netflix.