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New Orleans’s ultimate horror movie filming locations map

From “Interview with the Vampire” to “American Horror Story”

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NOLA’s history of witchcraft, its geography dotted with decaying above-ground cemeteries, and a reputation for housing all manner of fictional vampires makes it an ideal setting for celebrating the art of the scare. Not to mention that, thanks to its French colonial-style architecture, moss-hung oaks, and buttery subtropical light, it may be the most hauntingly photogenic city of all time.

Hollywood has certainly taken advantage of the Crescent City’s atmosphere over the years. Indeed, the city once known as Hollywood South (a title now held by Atlanta) and its outlying areas have become a popular shooting location for an impressive number of horror films and TV shows.

In 1964, the Bette Davis-Olivia De Havilland horror film Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte exploited the spooky potential of 19th-century plantation homes to great effect. In 1994, the city hosted Hollywood mega-stars Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt for the adaptation of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire. Producer Ryan Murphy used the city as a backdrop for two gruesome seasons of American Horror Story, and most recently, it served as a backdrop for The Purge, a hyper-violent miniseries on USA Network.

To celebrate the city’s long history as a haven for some of Tinseltown’s ghastliest visions, we’ve put together a handy map of locations featured in horror films and TV shows, from the sprawling plantations west of the city to NOLA’s patchwork of cemeteries, churches, and late-night dive bars.

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Urbania House

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You know a house has made it when it has its own IMDB listing. The Lower Garden District’s Urbania House was featured as the primary set in Hell Baby, a 2013 flick that details the trope-tastic story of a couple who moves into the beautifully decayed but sinister mansion. The pregnant wife becomes possessed; exorcisms ensure, and a devil baby is born in what Urbania owner Banks McClintock describes as “the goofiest horror film ever... best enjoyed while possessed by New Orleans spirits in libation form.”

A creepy mansion with ionic columns and an iron fence Photo courtesy Banks McClintock

Otis House (‘Eve’s Bayou’)

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Eve’s Bayou isn’t a horror movie per se, but its moody rural Louisiana setting and themes of voodoo certainly tip their hat to the genre. The Queen Anne-style home where the secret-plagued Batiste family lives is the historic Otis House, a sprawling mansion located in Fairview-Riverside State Park (and also heavily featured in Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond). Built in 1885 for lumber baron William Theodore Jay, the home and surrounding grounds were eventually donated to the state of Louisiana and are now open to the public.

Lionsgate, Dana Causey

Houmas House Plantation and Gardens (‘Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte’)

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The Houmas House Plantation has been a popular filming location for decades, but it is most associated with the 1964 “hagsploitation” classic Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, which used it as the home of unhinged spinster Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis). Interested parties can take a guided tour of the house and grounds, including the bedroom where Davis reportedly slept during filming

20th Century Fox, Prayitno

Evergreen Plantation (‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’)

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The Evergreen Plantation in Wallace was used as the home of 5,000-year-old vampire leader Adam (Rufus Sewell) in the film adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s horror mashup novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. One of the best-preserved antebellum plantations in the South, the grounds’ 22 intact slave cabins provide a window into a truly horrifying chapter of America’s past. “Shooting at the site of unspeakable sins and tragedy was a haunting experience for the crew,” wrote the film’s production designer Francois Audouy on his personal blog. The Greek Revival home, which boasts eye-catching twin staircases in front, was also memorably featured in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained in 2012.

Felicity Plantation (‘The Skeleton Key’)

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The home where Caroline (Kate Hudson) cares for the elderly Benjamin Devereaux (John Hurt) in this 2005 hoodoo horror flick is the historic Felicity Plantation, located just down Highway 18 from both Oak Alley and its sister plantation St. Joseph. Built in the mid-19th century, the house was also featured in 12 Years a Slave as the house of sadistic slave owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). 

Universal Pictures

Oak Alley Plantation (‘Interview with the Vampire’)

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Oak Alley in Vacherie doubles as slave owner and future vampire Louis’ (Brad Pitt) picturesque plantation. Framed by 28 curving oak trees, the Greek Revival mansion was completed in 1839 and opened to the public in 1972. The house and grounds subsequently became a popular filming location used in movies and TV shows including Primary Colors, Ghost Hunters, The Long Hot Summer, and the music video for Beyonce’s 2006 single “Deja Vu.”

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Boomerang’s (‘Bug’)

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Ashley Judd’s down-and-out waitress works at this New Sarpy dive bar in Exorcist director William Friedkin’s claustrophobic 2006 psychological horror film Bug. The motel room where the majority of the film takes place was constructed inside the gymnasium at Grace King High School in Metairie.

A post shared by Philip Mistretta (@cujo626) on

Hotel Royal (‘The Originals’)

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The Originals’ Marcel (Charles Michael Davis) throws a mean party at Hotel Royal, a restored 1827 Creole townhouse located in the French Quarter.

Madame John’s Legacy (‘Interview with the Vampire’)

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In Interview with the Vampire, an unlucky family murdered by Lestat (Tom Cruise) and Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) are carried out of this historic French Quarter home in coffins. Completed way back in 1788, the French Colonial cottage is now owned by the Louisiana State Museum and is available to tour.

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St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 (‘The Beyond’)

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The historic St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 was one of the many New Orleans locations used in Lucio Fulci’s 1981 supernatural gore-fest The Beyond. Opened in 1789, the above-ground graveyard it is rumored to contain the remains of of voodoo priestess Marie Laveau. It is also the home of a controversial nine-foot-tall pyramid-shaped mausoleum installed by actor Nicolas Cage in 2010.

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The Camellia Grill (‘American Horror Story: Freak Show’)

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Though American Horror Story’s fourth season is technically set in Jupiter, Florida, Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange) recruits Jimmy Darling (Evan Peters) for her freak show at the iconic New Orleans diner Camellia Grill. The no-frills eatery opened in 1946 and has since spawned a spin-off restaurant called The Grille in Metairie. 

Tulane University (‘Scream Queens’)

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Tulane’s campus doubled for the fictional Wallace University in FX’s short-lived horror-comedy series starring Emma Roberts and Jamie Lee Curtis. In addition to making use of several classrooms, the series filmed in Lavin-Bernick Center dining hall, Newcomb Quad, and in front of the imposing, Richardsonian Romanesque Gibson Hall. (Note: The series also filmed some scenes at adjacent Loyola University.)

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Cure (‘American Horror Story: Coven’)

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Fiona (Jessica Lange) and Cordelia (Sarah Paulson) imbibe at this firehouse-turned-cocktail-bar on Freret Street in Episode 3 of American Horror Story: Coven. In addition to being a popular filming location (Focus, The Mechanic, Broken City), the upscale establishment is known for its quality cocktails and has been named one of the city’s essential drinking spots.

A post shared by Mothersauce (@mothersauce) on

Loyola University (‘Happy Death Day’)

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This hybrid of Groundhog Day and Scream was filmed almost entirely at New Orleans’ Loyola University. Exteriors of the dorm where Tree (Jessica Rothe) wakes up (over and over again) were shot at the campus’s picturesque Marquette Hall, while her perennial morning walk was filmed in the sculpture garden on the backside of the building. Her sorority house, meanwhile, is located right down the street at the university-owned Veritas Hall, a gorgeous 20,000 square foot mansion built in 1906.

A post shared by Jelena Ozgur (@jelenaozgur) on

Buckner Mansion (‘American Horror Story: Coven’)

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The 20,000 square foot Buckner Mansion portrays the exterior of Miss Robichaux’s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies (ahem, witches) in Season 3 of the grisly FX anthology series. Built in 1856 for the clearly-ostentatious cotton magnate Henry S. Buckner, the mansion was once available as a vacation rental, though it appears to be off the market for the time being.

FX

3010 Sandra Dr

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Set in an unnamed American city, The Purge is a 10-episode miniseries detailing a dystopian society and its yearly, 12-hour bloodbath—a time when citizens can rob, kill, maim, mutilate, and otherwise harm their fellow men without fear of legal retribution. One of its characters, Miguel, stumbles upon this graffiti-adorned former apartment development on the West Bank, which functions as a sort of hideout for bad guys. The show has received mixed reviews from critics, but even if you’re not a fan, this mammoth art installation by Brandan “Bmike” Odums and crew is worth a trip across the Crescent City Connection.

St. Alphonsus Church (‘Angel Heart’)

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“Churches give me the creeps,” Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) tells Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) in the cult 1987 horror film Angel Heart. That line is spoken inside the former St. Alphonsus Church, located in New Orleans’s Irish Channel neighborhood. Built in 1857, the Italianate church (now a community center) is notable for its association with Anne Rice, who attended it as a child and later credited it with inspiring her writing.

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 (‘The Originals’)

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The witches of CW’s The Originals commune with their Ancestors in this above-ground cemetery located on Washington Avenue. Like St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, the site drips with Gothic ambiance that lends itself well to Hollywood genre films, from Dracula 2000 to the Ashley Judd vehicle Double Jeopardy. In literature, it also serves as the burial ground of the Mayfair Witches, whose creator Anne Rice once staged her own funeral here to promote the release of her 1995 novel Memnoch the Devil.

A post shared by Stacie Baptista (@stercie) on

Audubon Zoo (‘Cat People’)

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Though many of the zoo scenes in Paul Schrader’s slick Cat People remake were shot on sets created specifically for the movie, the production also filmed portions at NOLA’s Audubon Zoo. In a grisly case of life imitating art, one of the park’s jaguars escaped its enclosure and killed several other animals before being recaptured.

Universal Pictures

The Brown Mansion (‘Preacher’)

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Said to be the largest—and certainly the most imposing—mansion along St. Charles Avenue, this Richardsonian Romanesque Revival stunner makes a fitting home for Tulip O’Hare’s mobster ex-husband Viktor Kruglov (Paul Ben-Victor) on AMC’s blood-drenched comic book adaptation Preacher.

A post shared by David (@davidnola) on

F&M Patio Bar (‘American Horror Story: Freak Show’)

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The disturbed Dandy (Finn Wittrock) picks up very unlucky hustler Andy (Matt Bomer) at this Tchoupitoulas Street bar on an episode of American Horror Story: Freak Show. Appropriately, the dive-y institution (complete with leopard print pool table) is said to be busiest after midnight.

A post shared by Fabio (@fabio_amadeus_bories) on

Creedmoor Plantation (‘The Last Exorcism’)

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The Creedmoor Plantation in St. Bernard offered an ideal setting for the 2010 found footage horror hit The Last Exorcism, which relied on its remote location for extra creepiness. The circa 1840 Greek Revival home sustained damage in Hurricane Katrina, and according to cast member Louis Herthum, at the time of filming it hadn’t entirely recovered. “They had replaced the floorboards,” he told Scene Magazine in a 2010 interview, “but everything still seemed warped.”

Urbania House

You know a house has made it when it has its own IMDB listing. The Lower Garden District’s Urbania House was featured as the primary set in Hell Baby, a 2013 flick that details the trope-tastic story of a couple who moves into the beautifully decayed but sinister mansion. The pregnant wife becomes possessed; exorcisms ensure, and a devil baby is born in what Urbania owner Banks McClintock describes as “the goofiest horror film ever... best enjoyed while possessed by New Orleans spirits in libation form.”

A creepy mansion with ionic columns and an iron fence Photo courtesy Banks McClintock

Otis House (‘Eve’s Bayou’)

Eve’s Bayou isn’t a horror movie per se, but its moody rural Louisiana setting and themes of voodoo certainly tip their hat to the genre. The Queen Anne-style home where the secret-plagued Batiste family lives is the historic Otis House, a sprawling mansion located in Fairview-Riverside State Park (and also heavily featured in Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond). Built in 1885 for lumber baron William Theodore Jay, the home and surrounding grounds were eventually donated to the state of Louisiana and are now open to the public.

Lionsgate, Dana Causey

Houmas House Plantation and Gardens (‘Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte’)

The Houmas House Plantation has been a popular filming location for decades, but it is most associated with the 1964 “hagsploitation” classic Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, which used it as the home of unhinged spinster Charlotte Hollis (Bette Davis). Interested parties can take a guided tour of the house and grounds, including the bedroom where Davis reportedly slept during filming

20th Century Fox, Prayitno

Evergreen Plantation (‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter’)

The Evergreen Plantation in Wallace was used as the home of 5,000-year-old vampire leader Adam (Rufus Sewell) in the film adaptation of Seth Grahame-Smith’s horror mashup novel Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. One of the best-preserved antebellum plantations in the South, the grounds’ 22 intact slave cabins provide a window into a truly horrifying chapter of America’s past. “Shooting at the site of unspeakable sins and tragedy was a haunting experience for the crew,” wrote the film’s production designer Francois Audouy on his personal blog. The Greek Revival home, which boasts eye-catching twin staircases in front, was also memorably featured in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained in 2012.

Felicity Plantation (‘The Skeleton Key’)

The home where Caroline (Kate Hudson) cares for the elderly Benjamin Devereaux (John Hurt) in this 2005 hoodoo horror flick is the historic Felicity Plantation, located just down Highway 18 from both Oak Alley and its sister plantation St. Joseph. Built in the mid-19th century, the house was also featured in 12 Years a Slave as the house of sadistic slave owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). 

Universal Pictures

Oak Alley Plantation (‘Interview with the Vampire’)

Oak Alley in Vacherie doubles as slave owner and future vampire Louis’ (Brad Pitt) picturesque plantation. Framed by 28 curving oak trees, the Greek Revival mansion was completed in 1839 and opened to the public in 1972. The house and grounds subsequently became a popular filming location used in movies and TV shows including Primary Colors, Ghost Hunters, The Long Hot Summer, and the music video for Beyonce’s 2006 single “Deja Vu.”

A post shared by av (@lovelyav) on

Boomerang’s (‘Bug’)

Ashley Judd’s down-and-out waitress works at this New Sarpy dive bar in Exorcist director William Friedkin’s claustrophobic 2006 psychological horror film Bug. The motel room where the majority of the film takes place was constructed inside the gymnasium at Grace King High School in Metairie.

A post shared by Philip Mistretta (@cujo626) on

Hotel Royal (‘The Originals’)

The Originals’ Marcel (Charles Michael Davis) throws a mean party at Hotel Royal, a restored 1827 Creole townhouse located in the French Quarter.

Madame John’s Legacy (‘Interview with the Vampire’)

In Interview with the Vampire, an unlucky family murdered by Lestat (Tom Cruise) and Claudia (Kirsten Dunst) are carried out of this historic French Quarter home in coffins. Completed way back in 1788, the French Colonial cottage is now owned by the Louisiana State Museum and is available to tour.

A post shared by Nina (@ninabambina) on

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 (‘The Beyond’)

The historic St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 was one of the many New Orleans locations used in Lucio Fulci’s 1981 supernatural gore-fest The Beyond. Opened in 1789, the above-ground graveyard it is rumored to contain the remains of of voodoo priestess Marie Laveau. It is also the home of a controversial nine-foot-tall pyramid-shaped mausoleum installed by actor Nicolas Cage in 2010.

A post shared by Katie Schutte (@katieschutte) on

The Camellia Grill (‘American Horror Story: Freak Show’)

Though American Horror Story’s fourth season is technically set in Jupiter, Florida, Elsa Mars (Jessica Lange) recruits Jimmy Darling (Evan Peters) for her freak show at the iconic New Orleans diner Camellia Grill. The no-frills eatery opened in 1946 and has since spawned a spin-off restaurant called The Grille in Metairie. 

Tulane University (‘Scream Queens’)

Tulane’s campus doubled for the fictional Wallace University in FX’s short-lived horror-comedy series starring Emma Roberts and Jamie Lee Curtis. In addition to making use of several classrooms, the series filmed in Lavin-Bernick Center dining hall, Newcomb Quad, and in front of the imposing, Richardsonian Romanesque Gibson Hall. (Note: The series also filmed some scenes at adjacent Loyola University.)

A post shared by Erica (@nicobelle16) on

Cure (‘American Horror Story: Coven’)

Fiona (Jessica Lange) and Cordelia (Sarah Paulson) imbibe at this firehouse-turned-cocktail-bar on Freret Street in Episode 3 of American Horror Story: Coven. In addition to being a popular filming location (Focus, The Mechanic, Broken City), the upscale establishment is known for its quality cocktails and has been named one of the city’s essential drinking spots.

A post shared by Mothersauce (@mothersauce) on

Loyola University (‘Happy Death Day’)

This hybrid of Groundhog Day and Scream was filmed almost entirely at New Orleans’ Loyola University. Exteriors of the dorm where Tree (Jessica Rothe) wakes up (over and over again) were shot at the campus’s picturesque Marquette Hall, while her perennial morning walk was filmed in the sculpture garden on the backside of the building. Her sorority house, meanwhile, is located right down the street at the university-owned Veritas Hall, a gorgeous 20,000 square foot mansion built in 1906.

A post shared by Jelena Ozgur (@jelenaozgur) on

Buckner Mansion (‘American Horror Story: Coven’)

The 20,000 square foot Buckner Mansion portrays the exterior of Miss Robichaux’s Academy for Exceptional Young Ladies (ahem, witches) in Season 3 of the grisly FX anthology series. Built in 1856 for the clearly-ostentatious cotton magnate Henry S. Buckner, the mansion was once available as a vacation rental, though it appears to be off the market for the time being.

FX

3010 Sandra Dr

Set in an unnamed American city, The Purge is a 10-episode miniseries detailing a dystopian society and its yearly, 12-hour bloodbath—a time when citizens can rob, kill, maim, mutilate, and otherwise harm their fellow men without fear of legal retribution. One of its characters, Miguel, stumbles upon this graffiti-adorned former apartment development on the West Bank, which functions as a sort of hideout for bad guys. The show has received mixed reviews from critics, but even if you’re not a fan, this mammoth art installation by Brandan “Bmike” Odums and crew is worth a trip across the Crescent City Connection.

St. Alphonsus Church (‘Angel Heart’)

“Churches give me the creeps,” Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) tells Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) in the cult 1987 horror film Angel Heart. That line is spoken inside the former St. Alphonsus Church, located in New Orleans’s Irish Channel neighborhood. Built in 1857, the Italianate church (now a community center) is notable for its association with Anne Rice, who attended it as a child and later credited it with inspiring her writing.

Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 (‘The Originals’)

The witches of CW’s The Originals commune with their Ancestors in this above-ground cemetery located on Washington Avenue. Like St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, the site drips with Gothic ambiance that lends itself well to Hollywood genre films, from Dracula 2000 to the Ashley Judd vehicle Double Jeopardy. In literature, it also serves as the burial ground of the Mayfair Witches, whose creator Anne Rice once staged her own funeral here to promote the release of her 1995 novel Memnoch the Devil.

A post shared by Stacie Baptista (@stercie) on

Audubon Zoo (‘Cat People’)

Though many of the zoo scenes in Paul Schrader’s slick Cat People remake were shot on sets created specifically for the movie, the production also filmed portions at NOLA’s Audubon Zoo. In a grisly case of life imitating art, one of the park’s jaguars escaped its enclosure and killed several other animals before being recaptured.

Universal Pictures

The Brown Mansion (‘Preacher’)

Said to be the largest—and certainly the most imposing—mansion along St. Charles Avenue, this Richardsonian Romanesque Revival stunner makes a fitting home for Tulip O’Hare’s mobster ex-husband Viktor Kruglov (Paul Ben-Victor) on AMC’s blood-drenched comic book adaptation Preacher.

A post shared by David (@davidnola) on

F&M Patio Bar (‘American Horror Story: Freak Show’)

The disturbed Dandy (Finn Wittrock) picks up very unlucky hustler Andy (Matt Bomer) at this Tchoupitoulas Street bar on an episode of American Horror Story: Freak Show. Appropriately, the dive-y institution (complete with leopard print pool table) is said to be busiest after midnight.

A post shared by Fabio (@fabio_amadeus_bories) on

Creedmoor Plantation (‘The Last Exorcism’)

The Creedmoor Plantation in St. Bernard offered an ideal setting for the 2010 found footage horror hit The Last Exorcism, which relied on its remote location for extra creepiness. The circa 1840 Greek Revival home sustained damage in Hurricane Katrina, and according to cast member Louis Herthum, at the time of filming it hadn’t entirely recovered. “They had replaced the floorboards,” he told Scene Magazine in a 2010 interview, “but everything still seemed warped.”