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Retro Rewind: That Brutal Made For TV Movie “The Secret Life of Jeffrey Dahmer”

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Written by Patti Pauley

This has been a long time coming Retro Rewinders. If you were of sound mind in 1993, you may recall a horrific little made for TV movie entitled The Secret Life of Jeffrey Dahmer.  Or technically speaking, The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer.

Oh yes, we’re going to talk about this fuckery.

secret life of jeffrey dahmer

Frankly speaking, I’m not sure why this film isn’t talked about more often in horror circles. Visually the 1993 film looks pretty dated however, the movie that in my opinion, has most accurately depicted Dahmer’s perception of life and twisted state of mind, to this day holds up as THEE legit Dahmer movie out of the several that have popped up since the twisted killer’s arrest on July 22, 1991. And regarding gorehounds out there, it’s DEFINITELY the most brutal and by far the most unsettling to sit through. I’m not sure how I got away with watching this completely fucked up movie with my virgin 10-year-old eyes, but I most certainly did. Bless the golden age of HBO and the days when the boob tube was an acceptable babysitter for rugrats.

Directed by David Bowen and starring a convincible Carl Crew as the infamous Dahmer, The Secret Life is told from the killer’s point of view and laid out through the horrific 14 years of Dahmer’s life of murder and madness that resulted in the deaths of 17 young men and ultimately, leading up to his arrest. Crew (Dahmer) with those hauntingly calming voice-over monologues as a well-aware killer with an eternal fear of abandonment throughout the movie and ability to go from calm as a cucumber to unhinged is in my opinion, pretty underrated as Crew’s performance is quite the treat for fans of this type of film.

The Secret Life was released two years after Dahmer’s real-life arrest and one year prior to his death in prison, so the terrifying discovery of the acts from Dahmer was still fresh in the world’s mind. And the fact that the film played the no hold’s barred card with extremely violent sequences involving the murder of Dahmer’s victims, really set some folks off in the sensitivity department. Curious audiences who had followed the case knew to an extent, of the horrors Dahmer unleashed upon his prey, but I’m not so sure anyone was really prepared for the brutal savagery displayed on film that seemed like something out of a snuff flick but was in fact, reality of the final moments of the casualties of Dahmer. Bowen’s telling of the grisly murders and semi-humanizing Dahmer in a way to look deeper behind the monster didn’t sit too well with a lot of critics and viewers back in ’93 so the film seemed to drop off the face of the earth with the ending of the VHS era until a few years back when Intervision released a DVD that includes the original trailer, audio commentary with director Bowen, and a featurette with Carl Crew.

The Dahmer true tale of torture and terror is unsettling enough as it is and this movie goes balls deep right into it without adding any flair or big-budget fluff. And frankly, it works better that way. It feels like you’re watching something maybe you really shouldn’t be looking at, however the story is told so well behind the brutality of it that severed heads proudly on display in Dahmer’s fridge are secondary elements in Bowen’s movie. Even so, it’s not for the queasy folks. And I wouldn’t suggest eating any beef stew during a viewing.

For those interested in revisiting or for first-time viewers, The Secret Life is available over on Amazon.

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‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise Getting TWO New Installments

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It was a risk for Fede Alvarez to reboot Sam Raimi’s horror classic The Evil Dead in 2013, but that risk paid off and so did its spiritual sequel Evil Dead Rise in 2023. Now Deadline is reporting that the series is getting, not one, but two fresh entries.

We already knew about the Sébastien Vaniček upcoming film that delves into the Deadite universe and should be a proper sequel to the latest film, but we are broadsided that Francis Galluppi and Ghost House Pictures are doing a one-off project set in Raimi’s universe based off of an idea that Galluppi pitched to Raimi himself. That concept is being kept under wraps.

Evil Dead Rise

“Francis Galluppi is a storyteller who knows when to keep us waiting in simmering tension and when to hit us with explosive violence,” Raimi told Deadline. “He is a director that shows uncommon control in his feature debut.”

That feature is titled The Last Stop In Yuma County which will release theatrically in the United States on May 4. It follows a traveling salesman, “stranded at a rural Arizona rest stop,” and “is thrust into a dire hostage situation by the arrival of two bank robbers with no qualms about using cruelty-or cold, hard steel-to protect their bloodstained fortune.”

Galluppi is an award-winning sci-fi/horror shorts director whose acclaimed works include High Desert Hell and The Gemini Project. You can view the full edit of High Desert Hell and the teaser for Gemini below:

High Desert Hell
The Gemini Project

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‘Invisible Man 2’ Is “Closer Than Its Ever Been” to Happening

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Elisabeth Moss in a very well-thought-out statement said in an interview for Happy Sad Confused that even though there have been some logistical issues for doing Invisible Man 2 there is hope on the horizon.

Podcast host Josh Horowitz asked about the follow-up and if Moss and director Leigh Whannell were any closer to cracking a solution to getting it made. “We are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” said Moss with a huge grin. You can see her reaction at the 35:52 mark in the below video.

Happy Sad Confused

Whannell is currently in New Zealand filming another monster movie for Universal, Wolf Man, which might be the spark that ignites Universal’s troubled Dark Universe concept which hasn’t gained any momentum since Tom Cruise’s failed attempt at resurrecting The Mummy.

Also, in the podcast video, Moss says she is not in the Wolf Man film so any speculation that it’s a crossover project is left in the air.

Meanwhile, Universal Studios is in the middle of constructing a year-round haunt house in Las Vegas which will showcase some of their classic cinematic monsters. Depending on attendance, this could be the boost the studio needs to get audiences interested in their creature IPs once more and to get more films made based on them.

The Las Vegas project is set to open in 2025, coinciding with their new proper theme park in Orlando called Epic Universe.

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Jake Gyllenhaal’s Thriller ‘Presumed Innocent’ Series Gets Early Release Date

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Jake gyllenhaal presumed innocent

Jake Gyllenhaal’s limited series Presumed Innocent is dropping on AppleTV+ on June 12 instead of June 14 as originally planned. The star, whose Road House reboot has brought mixed reviews on Amazon Prime, is embracing the small screen for the first time since his appearance on Homicide: Life on the Street in 1994.

Jake Gyllenhaal’s in ‘Presumed Innocent’

Presumed Innocent is being produced by David E. Kelley, J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot, and Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of Scott Turow’s 1990 film in which Harrison Ford plays a lawyer doing double duty as an investigator looking for the murderer of his colleague.

These types of sexy thrillers were popular in the ’90s and usually contained twist endings. Here’s the trailer for the original:

According to Deadline, Presumed Innocent doesn’t stray far from the source material: “…the Presumed Innocent series will explore obsession, sex, politics and the power and limits of love as the accused fights to hold his family and marriage together.”

Up next for Gyllenhaal is the Guy Ritchie action movie titled In the Grey scheduled for release in January 2025.

Presumed Innocent is an eight-episode limited series set to stream on AppleTV+ starting June 12.

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