A look inside Hollywood and the movies. : HARSH REALITY : A Movie About Jeffrey Dahmer Can’t Be a Quick, Sleazy Horror Flick. (<i> Right</i> !)

The case of killer Jeffrey Dahmer was almost made for the movies, but one project currently being pitched to Hollywood has a surprising perspective: It’s the story as seen by the judge who presided at Dahmer’s trial.

The movie rights to “The Jeffrey Dahmer Case,” a book now being written by Judge Laurence C. Gram Jr., were advertised last week in a Daily Variety ad that also stated that “The Jeffrey Dahmer Confessions,” a screenplay based on Judge Gram’s book and Dahmer’s confession, is also for sale.

In the closely watched trial, a jury decided earlier this year that the 31-year-old Dahmer, a former chocolate factory worker, was sane when he committed the 15 grisly murders, many of which involved cannibalism. He was sentenced to 15 consecutive life sentences.

According to Lew Breyer, a Florida-based literary agent and writer who’s writing the screenplay from Gram’s book and the confessions and offering the two properties to Hollywood, there has been some interest, although it hasn’t been to his and Judge Gram’s liking.

“I got a call from a producer who makes horror films,” says Breyer. “He wanted to make a quick film and shoot it in 30 days, which we didn’t want to do. It’s not our purpose to do a horror film. The story we’re selling is from the judge’s point of view.”

Gram, who’s been a judge in Milwaukee for 18 years, says “it’s a once-in-a-lifetime situation, presiding over a trial like that.

“I’m not just writing about this as a historical event, but also with the view of a judge,” says Gram from St. Petersburg, Fla., where he’s currently writing the book and conferring with Breyer, an old friend, on the script. “I intend to discuss some of my personal impressions of Jeffrey Dahmer as an individual. This includes what took place in the courtroom and other sidelights that only became available to me because I was involved in the case.”

What about the obvious comparisons to this year’s big Oscar winner, “The Silence of the Lambs”? “People will definitely try to put the two together,’ says Gram, who says he hasn’t seen “Silence.” “I suspect the fact that there was all this notoriety over the Jeffrey Dahmer case probably was of some assistance to the marketing of that movie.”

Ultimately, though, Breyer says they want to keep control of the movie. ‘If it ends up at some studio, a producer will get the script and want to do it his way,” he says. “We want to have control so we can do a good film.”