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Jeffrey Dahmer: Disney Star Ross Lynch To Play Serial Killer In ‘My Friend Dahmer’

By Lindsay McCane
Published on: 13:35 PST, Oct 6, 2016

Disney star Ross Lynch has been cast for the role of Jeffrey Dahmer in the upcoming film My Friend Dahmer.

The film, described by writer/director Marc Meyers, is “based on actual events… the film centers around Jeff Dahmer, a misunderstood, darkly depraved teenager, during his junior & senior years of high school.”

“[The movie is] set in a truly weird and sinister 1970s adolescent world, Jeff tries to make new friends as his divorcing parents, teachers, and friends ignore his descent into alcoholism and madness,” Meyers explained. “Jeff will later become the most depraved serial killer since Jack The Ripper. And this is the story before that story.”

Ross Lynch, like a lot of young actors, got his start on the Disney Channel. The 20-year-old actor appeared on the series Austin & Ally, along with the Teen Beach Movie and its sequel. Needless to say, Lynch’s latest role will be much more sinister.

My Friend Dahmer is based on the 2011 award-winning best-selling novel written by John “Derf” Backderf, who attended school with Dahmer. Backderf spoke about Jeffrey on his personal website.

“We all have that one school friend– the strange kid, the class freak, the guy whose antics amused and entertained, maybe even alarmed us. The one who sticks in our heads even with the passing of the years. That classmate is invariably left behind when we graduate into the adult world, vanishing into memory, filed away with our old yearbooks and other teenage mementos. But every now and then, we wonder, whatever happened to that friend? For one man who grew up in a small town in Ohio, that question was answered by every media outlet in the world on July 22, 1991. For the friend in question was… Jeffrey Dahmer!”

According to a 2012 article from Cleveland Plain Dealer, Meyers picked up an early copy of the novel at New York Comic Con and contacted Backderf the next day. Meyers and his producing partner Jody Girgenti later acquired the rights to the book for Ibid, who then acquired the movie rights.

“Everybody’s making movies based on comics; that’s all they make anymore,” Derf said of his novel. “It’s such a great story. I always knew in the back of my head that somebody’s got to snatch this up.”

“As long as they stick to the spirit of the book. It is after all nonfiction and meticulously researched,” he added. “But I’m sure they will.”

According to Biography, Jeffrey Dahmer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1960, and appeared to be a happy child until age 4 when he underwent surgery to correct double hernia. Following the surgery, Dahmer’s demeanor changed. He became unhappy and withdrawn. Dahmer claims his thoughts of necrophilia and murder started at age 14, but it wasn’t until he was 18 that he committed his first murder; he murdered his second victim in 1987. In total, Dahmer murdered 17 males, mostly African-American men he met at gay bars, malls, and bus stops, between 1978 and 1991.

“In addition to killing the men and teenagers he lured home, he mutilated, photographed and performed sexual acts on the victims’ corpses, keeping body parts as mementos,” the website reads. “Dahmer was captured in 1991 and sentenced to 16 life terms. He was killed by fellow prison inmate Christopher Scarver in 1994.”

Although My Friend Dahmer doesn’t have an official release date, the film is set to premiere sometime in 2017.

[Featured Image by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images]

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