Americans seem to fear and love serial killers in equal measure. How else to explain us huddling, stricken, around a neverending deluge of movies, shows, novels, podcasts, true crime non-fiction, and even video games that constantly puts these (mostly) men and their bloody deeds front and center? Our latest national obsession is the Netflix miniseries, Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which has already become one of its biggest hits. (Although given that so many people inexplicably equate Netflix with streaming -- or even television itself -- and given the streamer's persistent dearth of premium content, I wonder if anything semi-compelling and suitably buzzy would instantly become a huge hit for it.)
But where were we ... oh, right, serial killers! They've been everywhere in our popular culture for decades, the subject of acclaimed stories like Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs, Dexter, and True Detective. Even as real-life serial killing has declined since the 1980s due to a safer overall society and more sophisticated policing techniques, we remain hungry for more, um, serialized content. While we couldn't hope to create an exhaustive list in this space, here are four relatively recent shows and one movie you can switch over to once you've devoured Dahmer.
Black Bird (2022)
Paul Walter Hauser and Taron Egerton in Black Bird Apple TV
