Pack your bags, your cape, your fangs, your wings, and whatever other things you’ll need to scare up a good time and head down to the magical swamp and river lands of the Crescent City and experience its 300-plus years of history.
No doubt you’ve heard about Nicolas Cage and Nicholas Hoult filming Universal’s Renfield feature film in New Orleans about Dracula and his assistant. There’s the new Interview with the Vampire series just out on AMC and Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches, also due out from AMC in early 2023, both shot on location there. Spookiness as a lifestyle is here to stay in America’s most haunted city and it will dictate our tastes, styles, and perhaps even our food trends.
You can live like a creature of the night and live extra deliciously in New Orleans, as the veil grows thinner and thinner. Get into that fall feeling, with an array of old, haunted stays and activities that will make your spine tingle, whether you’re taken or you’re single. Even though the massively popular Voodoo Music Fest is canceled for the third year in a row, there are plenty of other ways to get into the groove of the season—living like a vampire, communing with ancestors, and mourning like a Creole, to name a few.
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Film and television producer Brittany Fallow has relocated to New Orleans, where she lately has been part of the Renfield team. Being a New Orleans resident (and being on set with vampires) has given her rare insights: “The French Quarter feels like there are vampires lurking in every dark corner, and you can often hear them being talked about when you pass a ghost/vampire tour. I am from California and when I used to travel to a historical city like New Orleans, I used to always joke with my friend that ‘vampires definitely live here,’ With history comes vampires, and I love that I now live in a city that celebrates that.”
The Krewe of Swampus (the Halloween-time moniker of the Krewe of Krampus) is kicking off their big party at 7 p.m. on Oct. 15 called “Swampus Returns.” It’ll be another drive-through “reverse parade”: the paraders in costume will be on the sides, as viewers go through the middle in their vehicles. The krewe was started by husband and wife founders Mike and Diana Esordi. They’re a team of folklore enthusiasts who have sought out stories around the globe ranging from “Champ” the lake monster of Lake Champlain to vampires and werewolves in Transylvania. He’s used his Rhode Island School of Design graphic design degree with a focus in exhibit design towards Swampus efforts, “I love designing for people in spaces. Parades are the perfect example of that.”
On Oct. 22, the Krewe of Boo parade will roll. You can expect to see [people dressed up as] monsters on horseback, Elvises, marching bands, ghouls, and goblins of all shapes and sizes. And you can vie for a chance to catch spooky doubloons, beads, toys, candy, and other treats. The Krewe, founded by Brian Kerh, has been going strong since 2007. The parade route goes through the main thoroughfares of the French Quarter (known as the Vieux Carré, and for October, it’s transformed into the “Boo Carré”).
The paraders always head north up Canal Street, which is a dividing line between the quarter and the Warehouse District. If you need to pre-game or take a break from the overt revelry, grab some witches’ brews at the magical Chandelier Bar at the Four Seasons Hotel, situated alongside the Mississippi River. Their drink menu will put a spring in your step or some kick to your broomstick. Plus, their drinks in purple, green, pink, blue, and orange tones will light up your Instagram feed. On the Friday before Halloween (Oct. 28), the restaurants inside the hotel will be serving up a proprietary blend called the “Ghouls Punch” for anyone dining at Miss River or Chemin à la Mer. As for Halloween day, the Chandelier Bar also will have a proprietary set of “Zombie Cocktails,” and all Four Seasons guests will get a special spooky treat delivered to their room on Halloween.
Also off Canal Street, a couple blocks up is Sazerac House, on the corner of Magazine Street, where you can study the history of New Orleans’ official drink, knock back some drink samples, and also see how their in-house bitters are made at their own distilling center. From September 1 until Halloween night, they’ll be serving a specialty drink called the Guillotine Joe No. 2, a Barbados Rum Pumpkin Old-Fashioned.
Another parade route favorite is Arnaud’s, a classic New Orleans restaurant now over a hundred years old and boasting its own ghost stories. A costumed greeter will be out front waiting to bring you into another world of dressed-up dining rooms and old-world charm. On Friday, Oct. 28, show up in costume for lunch where boo-tiful specialty cocktails with over-the-top garnishes will be furnished, as well as elaborately Halloween-decorated tables. While there, check out the Mardi Gras costume museum inside the restaurant for some inspiration. There will also be a live DJ and a “Cauldron Station” of punch and dry ice, plus other earthly and otherworldly delights.
Other fun to be had includes the Endless Night Festival. This year’s overall theme is “Storyville,” named after the area of town where “women of the night” once reigned supreme. From 1897 to 1917, a city ordinance permitted this red light district, which was named after City Councilman Sidney Story. Endless Night, a worldwide in-person gathering of human vampires in various cities, was founded by master fangsmith “Father Sebastiaan.” Like the Krewe of Boo, it’s another long-standing New Orleans tradition—this one beginning in 1998. Highlights are a Vampire Ball and a brand new shindig named the “Convivium Banquet Dinner Cruise,” if you’re looking for the real VIP vampire experience.
Father Sebastiaan describes his excitement for having vampires on the river, “Getting a hundred people together with crazy amazing costumes on a boat to cruise around together is something we’ve been trying to do for years and it’s finally happening!” This will be the first year of the Sabretooth Vampire Clan’s festival with Father Sebastiaan’s new wife, Lady Lynn. The pair met during an online class about witchcraft. DJ Matt V Christ and members of the Cirque du Vampyre burlesque troupe will be performing as guests dine on a three-course supper aboard the steamship Creole Queen. Sink your fangs into classic New Orleans dishes, with some sanguine-themed drinks. Creole Jambalaya, Braised Beef Brisket, Corn Maque Choux, and Paddlewheeler Bread Pudding with Bourbon are a few of the items to curb your blood lust. Other features of the Endless Night Fest 2022 include a high tea hosted with Boutique du Vampr. And here you thought vampires didn’t eat. You can find out about all the fanciful fanged fun at the Endless Night website.
As for vampire history, Father Sebastiaan says, “The vampire never dies, it just goes into hibernation. There have been three stages of vampirism. First, there was the Victorian stage, kicking things off with Lord Byron and John Paladory’s storytelling. Then there was stage two with 1922’s Nosferatu; vampires could go out in the day. Stage three was brought to us by Anne Rice, who wrote Interview with the Vampire as a short story in 1975. It would take her another twenty years to establish that story’s dominance worldwide. New Orleans was a Voodoo town before that.” Father Sebastiaan likes to think of our current times as “a resurgence of earlier waves, not an entirely new stage of vampirism.” Very soon, it’ll be time to party like it’s 1995 (when the original Interview with the Vampire movie came out) or you can party, live, and mourn like it’s the 1700s/1800s too.
On Sunday, Oct. 30, get your walking shoes on, as The Garden District Book Shop sponsors a second-line parade for famed author Anne Rice, hosted by the Anne Rice Vampire Lestat Fan Club. The event is for all ages and begins at 1:30 p.m. at 2727 Prytania Street. You may want to dress like a vampire for this event.
On Halloween night, you can catch Voodoo Authentica’s “VoodooFest.” In its 24th year, it’ll take place once again on the 600 block of Dumaine Street in the French Quarter. Voodoo, as a religion, is often misunderstood and portrayed negatively by Hollywood to this day. Come learn about the true intentions and activities that go on. VoodooFest is an annual event that includes ancestor worship and the calling of the ancestors; it happens each Halloween evening in the street right outside of the Voodoo Authentica Cultural Center & Collection. Festivities will begin at 1 p.m. and culminate in a 7 p.m. Ancestor Ritual. Various practitioners will lead ceremonies and there will be drumming and dancing. Everyone is welcome. It’s an all-ages event.
Voodoo priestess Brandi C. Kelley, who founded the institution and event, says, “I do hope this year we continue to bring people together from different traditions and walks of life to focus on the common threads of humanity which weave us all together. To lead with love, understanding, and inclusion.”
Cross the river and take a short drive to find more history and Halloween feels. Just over in St. James Parish, St. Joseph Plantation, a working sugar cane farm, will have its annual Mourning Tour, Oct. 1 through Nov. 3, featuring the customs and rituals of 18th and 19th century Creole Louisiana. The house will be “dressed in full deep mourning,” according to the old prescribed protocol of mourning. On Saturdays and Sundays, they’ll have live actors portraying some of the people who lived at St. Joseph and their mourning customs ala live reenactments, including that of Dr. Cazemir Bernard Mericq, who lived at St. Joseph. The grounds also have educational exhibits about enslaved peoples and other stark realities of how life once was there. The television show Queen Sugar is filmed here.
If you’d like to take a spooky piece of New Orleans back home with you, check out local artists like Jenny Shiner, a Chicago transplant to New Orleans, who’s been living in the Crescent City for over a year. You can regularly find her selling spooky resin items in the shapes of skulls, ghosts, coffins, black cats and other things that go bump in the night at Decatur After Dark art markets in the French Quarter and various other venues around town under the name “Wicked Bitch Epoxy.”
Shiner will be attending the Vampire Dinner Cruise: “I am most looking forward to seeing what others are wearing. I love the classic styling of the formal wear.” She lives for Halloween, “it’s always been my favorite holiday and I’m at a point in my life where it is now more just a way of life. As a kid, I would make all kinds of Halloween designs— mostly drawing or layering construction paper all while watching Son of Svengoolie. My favorite thing to make are my skulls. I love doing things out of the norm with them, whether making them with flowers and sparkles or steampunk with gears and lights or just other crazy colors.” To sum up her devotion to spookiness, Shiner admits, “It’s not just a season, it’s a way of life. My house has skulls, coffins, and even a plague doctor up all year. I just go more extreme as October approaches. The skulls and my plague doctor get dressed up for other holidays like Christmas and Mardi Gras. The other thing I love is watching all the classic horror movies. The original Night of the Living Dead is still my all-time favorite.”
Where to hang your hat, cape, prosthetics, etc. while in town
The City of New Orleans is no stranger to haunted hotels and ones that will host you with sparkly opulence to accentuate the magical mood of the fall. The Four Seasons is newly redone and is fantastic for the spooky season, sitting right next to the river and mere steps from the Krewe of Boo parade route, with in-house dining choices and an in-house spa to relax in after days and nights out. Hotel Monteleone, a few blocks away, is famously haunted and offers autumn ghost tours. You can find out more about those here, where they’ll have their listings for Halloween activities. The Bourbon Orleans Hotel is also said to be haunted by multiple ghosts and entities. Le Pavillon Hotel is decidedly haunted and boasts a “New Orleans Nightmare” (a 13th floor haunted house), with details here. There’ve been many documented spirit sightings at the Andrew Jackson Hotel in the heart of the French Quarter as well.
If you’d rather have some ghosts all to yourself and for your personal crew, there are rentals near all of the Halloween-time activities. According to this listing, the “Montrose Queen,” just over in Faubourg Marigny, is both haunted and also a former brothel. With its old world touches, you’ll feel whisked away and living New Orleans history. Get your own finely furnished, high-ceilinged Bywater Italianate Creole cottage, built in the late 1800s, in this hip neighborhood east of the quarter, the site of another former brothel. If you need to bring a household of your ten closest friends, get this historic landmark with ten beds, eight bathrooms, and its own swimming pool. This Queen Anne style home has three floors and once belonged to a one Mr. Charles Auguste Orleans and his family. This historic home was built in the 1800s and used to be a billiards hall and ice cream parlor.
With all the social vampirism going on in the world, you’ll be safer with underworld and supernatural realm dwellers—with Creole mourners of yore, Swampus creatures, fanged persons, and the ancestors and their summoners in New Orleans—parading, dining, imbibing, and thriving.
If you make it through All Saints Day (Nov. 1) and All Souls Day (Nov. 2) and the days following, then check out the New Orleans Film Festival that begins on Nov. 5.
