Belgian serial killer Benoit (Poelvoorde), seemingly genial, likes to talk about his gruesome work: Who he kills, why he kills, and how he manages to pull it off. So he agrees to let a two-man documentary crew (Belvaux and Bonzel) tag along on his latest spree. But what happens when the line between objective eyewitnessing and criminal participation begins to blur?

A mock documentary with razor-sharp teeth, "Man Bites Dog" takes an irreverent look at the media's macabre fascination with violence. Watching Remy and Andre (two of the film's directors) slowly get sucked into the killer's vortex while maintaining a pretense of dispassionate observation-it begins as they agree to hold a flashlight for the psychopath-is just part of this film's darkly hilarious, not-so-subtle irony. Poelvoorde is particularly skilled at summoning an often amusing but ultimately depraved and cold-blooded personality. But aren't we all complicit, the filmmakers slyly hint, when we casually consume images of death at the movies or on the nightly news?