Man Bites Dog

Man Bites Dog (, literally "It Happened Near Your Home") is a 1992 French-language Belgian black comedy crime mockumentary film written, produced and directed by Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel and Benoît Poelvoorde, who are also the film's co-editor, cinematographer and lead actor respectively. The film follows a crew of filmmakers following a serial killer, recording his horrific crimes for a documentary they are producing. At first dispassionate observers, they find themselves increasingly caught up in the chaotic and nihilistic violence, eventually becoming accomplices. The film received the André Cavens Award for Best Film by the Belgian Film Critics Association (UCC). Since its release, the picture has become a cult film, and received a rare NC-17 rating for its theatrical release in the U.S. Plot Ben is a witty and charismatic but narcissistic and easily-enraged serial killer who holds forth at length about whatever comes to mind, be it the "craft" of murder, the failings of architecture, his own poetry, or classical music, which he plays with his girlfriend Valerie. A film crew joins him on his sadistic adventures, recording them for a fly on the wall documentary. Ben takes them to meet his family and friends while boasting of murdering many people at random and dumping their bodies in canals and quarries. The viewer witnesses these grisly killings in graphic detail. Ben ventures into apartment buildings, explaining how it is more cost-effective to attack old people than young couples because the elderly have more cash at home and are easier to kill. In a following scene, he screams wildly at an elderly lady, causing her to have a heart attack. As she lies dying, he casually remarks that this method saved him a bullet. Ben continues his candid explanations and rampage, shooting, strangling, and beating to death anyone who comes his way: women, illegal immigrants and postmen (his favorite targets). He enjoys killing a postman at the start of the month because they tend to have parcels with money and other goods he can steal; enjoys killing women because they don't fight back; and enjoys killing immigrants because he's a total racist (he jokes about having murdered two Muslims and making sure to entomb their bodies in a wall that faces Mecca, and amuses himself by checking out the genitals of a black security guard after he's shot the man in the head).