The Halloween stroll through fog, sets and costumed performers runs from October 16 to 31 in the 15th arrondissement, though reviewers warn of crowds and prices that are the scariest part of the evening
Fog Over The 15th
PARIS. The Parc Andre-Citroen in the 15th arrondissement has been transformed into the Parc de l’Etrange, a Halloween stroll through fog, sets and performers running from October 16 to 31, according to Sortiraparis’s guide to offbeat outings in Paris in October 2026. The guide flags caveats about price and crowds, which Parisians recognised immediately as the most frightening element of the experience.
Halloween has had a complicated history in France. For years it was dismissed as an American import, a commercial holiday unworthy of a nation with All Saints’ Day. Yet each autumn, more Parisians embrace costumes, pumpkins and haunted walks, and the Parc de l’Etrange shows how far the holiday has come: Paris now pays to be frightened in a park.
Familiar Horrors
A civil servant who visited on opening night said the atmosphere was impressive but oddly familiar. Fog, strange figures appearing from nowhere, crowds pushing in every direction, a long queue and a feeling that you have paid too much, he said. I experience this every morning on line 13. The difference is that at the Parc de l’Etrange, the frightening people are paid actors. On line 13, they are volunteers.
A student who attended with friends said the performers were excellent. One of them followed us for five minutes without saying a word, she said. Very sinister. My friend screamed. I did not scream, because I am Parisian. Parisians do not scream. We just look annoyed. The performer gave up eventually. I think we broke him.
The Price Of Fear
Sortiraparis notes that price is one of the caveats, a warning that resonates in a city where everything from coffee to cinema tickets seems to rise each year. A father of three from the 12th arrondissement said the outing had been memorable. The children loved it, he said. They were terrified for one hour. Then I paid for tickets, snacks and the hot chocolates, and I was terrified for the rest of the week.
The Crowds
The other caveat is the crowd. Haunted attractions depend on atmosphere: darkness, silence, surprise. Those are harder to achieve when hundreds of people are filming everything on their phones. A horror film director who attended out of professional curiosity said modern audiences were a challenge. In my day, he said, you could frighten people with a shadow. Now you jump out at them and they ask you to do it again so they can post it. The scariest thing for a monster today is the influencer.
Halloween, Paris Style
Paris offers a wide range of Halloween experiences this year, from ghost hunts at the Hotel de la Marine to a seance-themed evening at the Rodin Museum and haunted events at the Chateau de Breteuil. The Parc de l’Etrange, in one of the city’s most modern parks, with its glasshouses and tethered balloon, offers a slightly surreal setting: Gothic fog drifting across a landscape designed in the 1990s.
The Last Word
As the fog thickened over the park, a costumed figure with a pale face and black cloak crept up behind an elderly Parisian woman sitting on a bench. He leaned close and let out a long, terrible groan. She turned, looked him up and down and frowned. Young man, she said, I lived through the strikes of 1995. You do not frighten me. The performer straightened up, nodded respectfully and drifted back into the fog in search of easier prey.