La Cité de la peur

Alain Berbérian directed La Cité de la peur (full title La Cité de la peur, une comédie familiale; "The City of Fear"), a French crime comedy and parody released in 1994. Its writers and leading players are the members of the comedy trio Les Nuls: Chantal Lauby, Alain Chabat and Dominique Farrugia. It is also known as Le film de Les Nuls and runs 100 minutes.

The story takes place at the Cannes Film Festival in the 1990s. The projectionists of a bad horror film called Red Is Dead are killed one by one by a mysterious murderer armed with a hammer and sickle, just as in the film. Odile Deray (Chantal Lauby), the film's press agent, quickly sees the killings as publicity for the picture. She brings in its lead actor, Simon Jérémi (Dominique Farrugia), and hires Serge Karamazov (Alain Chabat) as a bodyguard, while commissioner Bialès (Gérard Darmon) leads the investigation. Eddy Mitchell and Jean-Pierre Bacri are also in the cast.

The film directly spoofs big-budget American movies such as Basic Instinct, Pretty Woman and The Terminator. Its humour leans heavily on puns and wordplay, so it is somewhat hard to follow for viewers who do not speak French. It was produced by Pathé Distribution.