At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

I read Lionel Dahmer's book. The film doesn't show any of the gore, blood, bones, and body parts but only allude to it. The film is about how a father like Dr. Lionel Dahmer deals with his son's brutal, horrific crimes. This film is low budget to begin with. There are some scenes like the flashbacks that seem repetitive. It's not a great film but low budget films don't have the financing to be better. This film actually centers on Lionel and his second wife, Shari Dahmer, and Jeffrey's paternal grandmother, Catherine Dahmer, whom he had a close relationship. I thought when I read the book that the Dahmers had left Catherine's house because of the press hounding on them. Jeffrey Dahmer was raised in a broken home with an unstable mother whom we never see so we don't' know her side. We do see Lionel as a broken man coming to terms with the realization of his son's crimes, There were signs but Jeffrey was skilled enough to be aware of his father's obvious questions. He wasn't close to his parents but to his grandmother. The male mannequin in the closet is a frightening clue to something wrong. There is a scene where Lionel tries to keep Jeffrey locked up but he can't do much. If you read Lionel Dahmer's book, he paints a portrait of a frustrating parent who knows something is terribly wrong but can't help his own son. Jeffrey had an alcoholism problem, pedophile, and terribly secretive which led to his compulsion to bury his victims. Lionel is ridden with guilt just as his second wife. Jeffrey's mother was not in this film. While it's an okay low budget film, the actors do the best they can with the material. The flashbacks help slowly unravel Jeffrey's behavior. Unfortunately, they don't mention the victims by names. They should have listed them in remembrance and not to forget them as well.

This movie is more for people who have studied up on Jeff Dahmer in order to try to understand why a human being would do what he did to other humans. It also serves as a warning to other parents to be on the lookout for typical serial killer childhood behavior. The actors were a bit stiff, but the inner struggle by Dahmer's father was portrayed very well. Everything that occurred in the movie was true as reported by Jeff's father (except I was not sure about the truth as to what occurred with Detective Amos in the movie).The artsy flashbacks to Jeff's childhood were effective and well done. This was a difficult subject matter to put into film. Since I already had an interest in Jeff Dahmer and was aware of what has been reported about his childhood - I feel that I got more out of it than the typical viewer.

First of all, I am shocked that this film was even in RedBox. My wife and I did some grocery shopping and then decided on our way out to rent a movie, and RedBox was right there, so it was convenient. We went through the titles it currently had in stock, and we eventually settled on what we would later learn was just a horrible piece of crap entitled "Raising Jeffrey Dahmer". I'm just glad we only paid a dollar for it, considering we only saw about half of the movie. We couldn't bear to see the rest. Just like all of the above reviews read, the acting is horrible, the sets are horrible and very obviously low-budget, the script is terrible and the movie itself just sort of drags along. Each scene is just way too long. You just sit there getting more and more bored. It is, however, laughable, that is, how horrible this movie is. I remember laughing quite a bit, feeling embarrassed for the actors on screen. Give me $3,000 and 2 weeks and I will make a better version of this movie and still have money left to buy a nice Gibson or something.

Who'd have thought a movie about a serial killer would be boring? But this movie is. It's disjointed and dull, and less about raising Jeffrey Dahmer than his family coming to grips with his arrest. That would be OK, but even that emotional time isn't portrayed very well.The acting isn't very good, but the script is even worse. It's difficult to sympathize with any of the characters, who are all pretty much one-dimensional: the self-questioning father, the steely stepmother and the distraught grandma. It seems impossible that any of them can feel those qualities simultaneously. There are tons of flashbacks, but they seem to come in no particular order, interspersed with comments such as, "That's it! That's when we knew!" I'm not sure if there are better movies about Jeffrey Dahmer out there, but I hope so.