6. Man Bites Dog (1992)
Ben is a witty, charismatic man. He can talk about virtually any subject at length. Perfect boyfriend material? Ben is a vicious serial killer whose depraved exploits are being filmed by a documentary crew. He boasts about his killings and the way he disposes of his victims so cleverly. The camera crew follow him as he kills people in many different ways. Ben is a dreadful misogynist and racist xenophobe. He also targets elderly people as they are easy to kill - he demonstrates this by shouting in an old woman's face and she promptly drops dead. As filming progresses, the crew become more and more complicit with Ben's dreadful deeds. This climaxes in the gang rape of a pregnant woman as her husband is forced to watch (the crew join in with the rape). The woman is disembowelled and her husband also killed. They help Ben smother a small boy in a home invasion and when a rival documentary crew take out a few members of Ben's crew, it is labelled 'an occupational hazard'. Ben becomes so full of himself, he shoots an acquaintance at a birthday dinner. Everyone is splattered with blood but continue to give Ben presents and act like nothing has happened. Eventually someone gives Ben a taste of his own medicine and kills his parents and girlfriend (the latter has her flute rammed up her anus). He decides to leave and is saying farewell to the camera when somebody finally shoots the smug bastard dead. Regarded in equal parts - a disturbing head f**k and a masterpiece of cinema - Man Bites Dog is utterly revolting. Funny? I would have to say it contains very pitch black humour. Clever? It is an innovative spin on the standard serial killer movie. Bad taste? Oodles of it flying off the screen. The disembowelled pregnant woman is a sight that has haunted my brain ever since I first watched the film back in 1995. There is just so many horrible sequences that the viewer feels queasy watching the film and Ben's constant philosophising makes him look like a pretentious buffoon. That latter fact ensures that his murderous behaviour is even more difficult to bear and highly escalates the extreme bad taste factor in the film.