Even by Jean-Pierre Mocky's standards, this is a crazy film, a swim into the absurdity of existence. Thematically part of the story is based on the fear caused by La Bête du Gévaudan in Lozère in the 1760s, although here part of the film was set in Salers (here called Barges) in the neighbouring département of Cantal. Initially called La Grande Frousse, Mocky changed the title to La Cité de l'indicible peur after the original title of Belgian Jean Ray's novel, on which it's based. Insane as the film may be, Mocky attracted a number of notable actors to play in it.
The forger Mickey le bénédictin (Marcel Pérès) escapes from the guillotine and as criminals are thought to return to the original scene of the crime, L'inspecteur Triquet (Bourvil) is sent to Barges, where everyone is terrified of the monster which supposedly comes out at night there, although Trinquet just calls it a legend; Saint Urodèle is said to have dealt with the creature.
It would be almost impossible to go into details of the 'plot' because there isn't really one, this is more a collection of eccentricities, and the film moves by visiting the quirks of the various characters, such as Trinquet himself, who originally goes to Barges ostensibly to hunt partridge and to look for a bald-headed man who may be wearing a wig and who hates cassoulet, and Trinquet moves in goat-like movements, partly running partly skipping. Franqui (Francis Blanche) spies on the town through binoculars and talks to his statue, a representation of Saint Urodèle; the village doctor Clabert (Victor Francen) is an alcoholic sometimes given to drinking pure medicinal alcohol; Paul (Roger Legris) is frightened of everything; the local cop Loupiac (Jean Poiret) seems more interested in how his hair looks than anything else, although it's normally covered in his képi; and the mayor Chabriant (Raymond Rouleau) has a strange tic of laughing at everything.
Eventually the beast is discovered (for some obscure reason) to be the butcher (René-Louis Lafforgue), although murders continue: first Franqui, then Douve (Jean-Louis Barrault) and finally the mayor. In the end it's discovered that the real criminal is Livina (Véronique Nordey), the mayor's secretary, not that that fact is of any importance in this detective story-cum-fantasy-cum-comedy-cum-satire. As Triquet's little one says as a closing line: 'Plus tard je ne veux être ni un bandit, ni un flic, je veux être un honnête homme': 'When I grow up I want to be neither cop nor robber, I want to be an honest man.'
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