An immense yet slinking police procedural that slips with disturbing ease into its audiences’ subconscious, Fabrice Du Welz’s Maldoror owes a debt to many contemporary serial killer creepers to come before it but comes together as a formidable, restrained, uniquely resonant work that finds the director at the height of his powers in telling a story at once hauntingly personal and broad in scope.

In early ‘90s Belgium, impulsive young police officer Paul Chartier (Anthony Bajon) is preparing to marry his sweetheart, Gina (Alba Gaïa Bellugi) but is soon distracted when he’s tapped by his superior, Hinkel (Laurent Lucas) to participate in Maldoror – a secret operation to monitor a dangerous sex offender named Marcel Dedieu (Sergi López) and investigate the abduction of two pre-teen girls. But, as Chartier gets closer to uncovering the truth, he grows increasingly erratic and frustrated with the calcified bureaucracy of his department, jeopardizing...