Man Bites Dog (1992)
A darkly comedic and chilling mockumentary about a serial killer, ideal for fans of "American Psycho" or "Dexter."
Genres: Comedy, Crime
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Man Bites Dog(1992)
Overview
A documentary crew follows a charismatic killer as he goes about his daily life, offering casual observations on art, society, and his own crimes. What starts as detached filming turns into a disturbing partnership, as the line between observing and enabling begins to blur with escalating recklessness.
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Review Summary
Pros: pitch-black humor; provocative media satire; memorably unsettling | Cons: extreme violence; deeply offensive moments; uneven, amateur feel
Will You Like This?
If you like bleak, boundary-pushing satire that mixes dark laughs with shocking violence and moral discomfort, this may land hard; Not for you if you want sympathetic characters or can’t handle brutal, disturbing content like in Crimes and Misdemeanors.
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The film has moments of utter brilliance, with the guerrilla filmmaking style perfectly complementing Benoît Poelvoorde''s performance, which crashes back and forth between appropriately outrageous and chillingly subtle. However, by the time you reach the end, you feel empty, not because of the film''s lack of heart, but it''s unwise lack of logic and restraint.
An utterly bonkers watch that, somehow, really keeps a grip on you. This is one of those films that goes from a full laugh to a grim sense of foreboding and back again
Here the real and the disturbing meet the absurd comedy, and the fake documentary style in black and white matches this dark satire. The movie has many graphic scenes of extreme violence and impact, but the story, which starts from the bizarre, ends up taking too many turns, and keeps repeating itself, trying to reinforce the satirical element all the time through the main character, who ends up plunging headlong into exaggeration and caricature, leaving the movie extremely boring.
it's boringly bad, I found myself wanting to go to sleep
Like giving a standup eulogy at a midnight funeral, Man Bites Dog is a comedy that is dark as hell. What we have here is a Belgian mockumentary following a local criminal as he murders, rapes and pillages his way around town. It's a low budget film made by film students that took off in ways no one could've predicted. Made in 1992, Man Bites Dog saw its limited theatrical / festival release blossom into a national and then international success. It was even screened at the Cannes film festival that year, where it snagged a Critics Prize and Young Filmmaker Award. Man Bites Dog isn't for every one. Even for me, a viewer with thicker skin than most, there was one scene where I felt they'd gone too far. But if you like your comedy like I like my coffee (hella black) and you don't mind young filmmakers pushing the envelope too far at times, then this comedy deserves your attention.
The original title of the film is C''est arrivé près de chez vous.
Running contender for weirdest/depraved documentary-style movie out there but no animals were fucked to death during the making of this movie, so that title still goes to ''Pink Flamingos''. Nonetheless, interesting and disturbing at times... in a fun way?
Featured User Reviews
One of the most amateur movies I have laid my eyes on. This entire movie is an agonizing display of the directer/writer's alter ego, over acted and over the top with violence. Everything feels pointless, and the ending really exasperates that. Also, as a warning there's an entire gang rape scene.
**A film very experimental and devoid of meaning, but with some notes of quality.** I didn't like this film. It's a low-budget film, directed by Rémy Belvaux, which basically makes a kind of false documentary around the criminal and violent activities of a cruel and bloodthirsty killer, who accepts being filmed while he kills his victims. A film that looks like an academic work by a film student, and not something made for the public. It will certainly be an interesting film for film students and cinema critics, but it is not something I recommend to the general public. The film has frankly positive points, starting with the excellent performance of Benoit Poelvoorde, who plays the main character and is the only character worthy of the name here. Everything else is extras or people who simply have to appear there. The realism is impressive and, at times, shocking, and the cinematography, in black and white, is very good and worked with creativity by the director. The film's biggest problem is the feeling of amateurism and experimentalism that is felt at various moments. It's also one of those extremely violent films where everything happens without there really being a reason, a reason for being. Much of the film is a succession of violent crimes where there is nothing more than purposeless violence. The killer kills because he does, and it seems that the journalists following him are also filming because they have to film something.
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