a review of 人咬狗

HOOPTOBER OCHO NIGHT NINETEEN & 1st Annual Criterion Challenge Week 41: Spines #100-#200 Didn't particularly care for this one, in spite of a handful of fun bits (specifically the main character opining on the proper technique for dumping corpses in quarries, and the later part where we bump into another killer with his own documentary crew) that reminded me of gags done better in various Edgar Wright or Taika Waititi films. The handling of the premise feels sort of unfocused, which I guess may come from this coming at the beginning of the '90s serial killer movie craze and there being less of an understanding of the distinction between a chaotic spree killer like the main character and folks who really do operate under the radar for years and years before being discovered. Like a lot of '90s stuff, it sometimes feels like it's trying a little too hard to be transgressive and implicate the filmmakers/audience in the onscreen crimes, to the point of being genuinely off-putting. (CW: Although most of the murder scenes are pretty much what one might expect from a slasher-type horror film, there is a scene depicting a gang rape/murder that almost made me turn off the movie 2/3rd of the way through. It's intended to fully turn us against the in-film camera crew, but instead it kind of turned me against the actual filmmakers for thinking they needed to go there.)