31 best things to do for Halloween in Montreal

There’s a club party for everyone at Halloween. On October 22, kick off the season with a bang at Café Cléopâtre with a spooky/sexy/scary show called 101 Frights that go Bump in the Night. Muzique is hosting a mega Bolloween party with costume prizes and fearful fun, with the hottest Bollywood tracks, on the night of October 26. At La Voûte, celebrate the eerie environment of Area 21 on October 31, November 1 and November 2 in its always-haunting space, a 1920s bank vault. 80s fans will love Synthoween at Bar Le Ritz PDB on November 1. At La Cantina Concha on Saint-Paul, celebrate on October 31 to the sounds of Flaco Remixx, Masta and Jesus. (Oh, Lord!) Plus so much more, so check out Eventbrite for the full listings.

This highly anticipated 9th edition of the Malefycia experience offers a full 12 days throughout October of a unique immersive event that invites you to journey through the horrors of long-forgotten television. Titled Canal 9, the creep-factor curators invite you to cross to the other side of the screen, to the studios where the shows of your youth never really ended. Find out what happens when the cameras turn off and the characters you loved reveal their true faces!

Catch two nights of kinky cabaret, devilish dances, pervy performances, fiery fetish, scandalous circus and more evil delights than you can imagine in your darkest dreams! The Cabaret du Diable Halloween will give you an eyeful on October 31 at Cabaret Lion d’Or, while on November 1, things get acrobatic with the Cirque du Diable Halloween at Théâtre Paradoxe.

Come enjoy an hour of haunted music by candlelight on October 25 at either 6:30 or 9 pm at the beautiful Rialto Theatre in Mile End. Enjoy a “soundtrack of fear" played by a string quartet in the light of hundreds of candles, playing timeless classics like Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' and Danny Elfman's 'This Is Halloween' from The Nightmare Before Christmas alongside some thematically appropriate classical pieces as well. Tickets are getting gobbled up, though; grab them while you can! (Not open to kids under 8 years old.)

This festival hosted by New City Gas is inspired by both Halloween and the Day of the Dead. Dance to beats dropped by Nico De Andrea, Peace Control, Birds of Mind and Baron, and make sure to wear your best costume—we hear there are big bucks to make in door prizes.

For four nights, two showings a night, Montreal's Rocky Horror Picture Show will celebrate the movie’s 50-year anniversary by lighting up both stage and screen for fans of the cult film (and the experience of throwing around objects and singing along as loudly as possible) at the Rialto Theatre or the Décarie Theatre. The event is deemed the largest of its kind in North America, so get ready to mourn Meatloaf en masse.

You've got your pumpkin... right? If you haven't already gone beyond the city limits to take in the autumn scenery and eat fresh menus from farms' kitchens at pumpkin patches for picking near Montreal, now is the perfect time to do so. We found a whopping 24 different places for you to travel to both near and far, and it’s a great time to make it part of a Halloween-themed weekend by going for a quick road trip.

Explore the city’s darkest history with a walking tour courtesy of Haunted Montreal, which throughout October offers a whole selection of haunting city-wide nighttime explorations, ghost tours and Paranormal Investigation treks through Colonial Old Montréal or Old Sainte Antoine Cemetery, for those with nads of steel.

Running until October 26, there are five haunted houses, 'scare zones', shows, and rides to check out at La Ronde every weekend (and a handful of weekdays) that are great for both brave adults and curious kids looking for a scare. There’s a brand-new area this year: the Clown Carnage. Yikes! Throughout the park, nearly 100 roaming creatures lurk in the shadows, ready to jump out at any moment, making the whole park a scary playground of haunted souls. 

Get your dose of Halloween Shivers throughout October at the Montreal Botanical Garden with a family-friendly event full of play areas, illuminated sights and horror stories—plus fun activities like wand handling and potion-making classes.

Get a chill down your spine at the Spasm Film Montreal Halloween Festival, a short film festival dedicated to the eeky creepy and weird side of cinema at Théâtre Plaza. The films can be horror, drama, or even comedies, but they’re all guaranteed to eek you out.

In the Old Port, SOS Labyrinthe will leave you lost and frightened with its Halloween programming including the pumpkin treasure hunt. Get a real adrenaline rush next door with a go on the MTL Zipline or Montréal Bungee.

Go beyond skeletons and ghosts to celebrate the full cycle of life and death at the Mexican Festival Día de Muertos. This annual edition runs from mid-October to early November and is packed with activities for the whole family, including workshops, film screenings, live music and a bake sale (tres leches cake, here we come).

Every year, the Village Québécois d'Antan in Drummondville looks to outdo the previous year's spooky activities, upping the ante. This year promises to be no different, with more than 130 actors bringing your worst nightmares to life in more than 20 displays of horror spread throughout the houses of the historic Village and 3 kilometres of streets and paths to get lost on. The family area opens at 6 pm to entertain the littlest ones. It opens at 6:30 pm every Friday and Saturday until November 1. There’s a donut shop to check out too!

November 1 could be a big-money night for you, with $1,700 worth in door prizes up for grabs for best costume at Complexe Sky, where the Carni’cule Halloween Party presents music and drag of the top order. Featuring the incredible Carmen Sutra, the night will be hosted by Muz’Emma and Moh Dafok, with DJGeorge and DJ Henrique Vianna at the decks.

Uncover the haunted past of this infamous club during the Fantômes de Café Cléopâtre, a vaudeville cabooret spooktakular presented on October 30 at 7:30 pm, October 31 at 10 pm and November 1 at 7:30 pm. Expect to be aroused, disgusted and thoroughly entertained by thrilling performances, spooky surprises and hauntingly good music.

Montreal's own Find the Key escape rooms have 45 minutes to an  hour of pure terror to experience, and if you don't believe us, consider why one of their puzzles is 16+: Anywhere from two to six people can experience the upside-down world of Stranger Things, or a scary and scarring Cabin in the Woods, or a haunted pirate ship. You've been warned.

Every weekend in October, the La Belle de Coteau-du-Lac farm an hour outside of Montreal is hosting an event called Festiv’Halloween which features a haunted corn maze and haunted 250 metre-long indoor and outdoor gallery course, in addition to pumpkin picking and picking your own corn for popcorn. The real attraction is that corn maze, however: Separated into a family-friendly version and one that's scarier and not for the faint of heart, it’s set up to scare you good.

If you’re into getting some top-notch Halloween treats this year, don't look any further than the chocolates that the Plateau chocolatier Ernestine is making—eyeball-covered cherry and fudge chocolate bars among them—as well as a the Halloween cupcake selection at Les Glaceurs, so cute you won’t want to eat ‘em. Juliette et Chocolat also has an exclusive Halloween selection, and we bet no skull will be left unsavoured after you’ve passed by Les Chocolats de Chloé.

A Halloween party along the theme of LinkedIn After Hours? Our skin is crawling just at the thought of it. Happening at L'Amère à Boire on Rue Saint-Denis on October 30, starting at 6:30, come action your learnings and exceed your KPIs, pizza and beer included. Dress in your best C suite look—it’s sure to be haunting.

For a family-friendly spin on the Halloween extravaganza it’s worth a little drive out of town to Chemin de l’Île aux Fantômes in Pierre-De-Saurel, not far from Sorel-Tracy. That’s where the inhabitants of L’Île aux Fantômes—that’s the name of the place year-round, not just at Halloween—will make an extra effort to dress up their homes and pass out candy. The fun happens on Saturday, October 26, from 3 to 8 pm—and you’ll need tickets to get in. 

Want some SLeepy Hollow feels this year? Located an hour and a half from Montreal, Upper Canada Village's Pumpkinferno show is back: It's an outdoor art exhibit made up of over 7,000 handcrafted pumpkins that are all lit at night along a kilometre-long path with the historic village's 19th-century backdrop. New and returning designer/carvers create new designs each season, so no two visits to this place's exhibits are ever the same. 

Located an hour outside Montreal in Rawdon, Ferme Guy Rivest has cut more than 8 kilometres of trails in their six-hectare cornfield for all kinds of family-friendly Halloween fun. The maze will be decorated for the occasion throughout October with additional activities and entertainment on Saturdays.

Sometimes Halloween is an invitation to cosy up and craft. This wholesome activity on October 30 from 8 to 10 pm at the Peel Pub is about making a spooky terrarium: your very own mini ecosystem inside an elegant wine or martini glass, which you can then personalize with a variety of plants and Halloween decor available. Everything you need will be provided by the experts onsite, so all you need is to buy a ticket, show up and be ready to learn.

While it is located out in Saint-Amable, the level of detail in Maxime Duval’s haunted houses are legendary and worth the trip out of Montreal. The artist's designs have regularly made headlines on the South Shore. This year, fans have been watching the progress on Facebook as he builds a Viking ship from scratch on his front lawn—all we can say is it’s sure to be larger than life.