Ok so this one breaks my heart.
The Cabaret de l’enfer was an architectural masterpiece of the weird and the macabre.
Founded in 1892 and filled with details, it was demolished in 1950 to expand a supermarket.
I will never not get mad at this.
Created by the same person, the Cabaret de l’enfer was linked to the Cabaret du ciel.
Heaven and Hell joined door to door.
The Cabaret du ciel had light decor and a regular looking facade, but in the Cabaret de l’enfer, you had to enter through the soul-eaten Leviathan’s mouth.
The experience was a prototype of immersive theater. You weren’t just a customer, you were a “damned soul”.
The amount of details on the building was insane.
The tongues, the devils, everything was carved and beautifully created.
Another spooky Cabaret opened in the area, the Cabaret du Néant (what a time it must have been to live in Montmartre!).
The Cabaret du Néant was darker in spirit. While the Cabaret de l’enfer was mostly magic tricks, humour and theatre, the other one made the guests eat on coffin tables and played with the macabre.
The Cabaret de l’enfer was a statement for several decades.
Inside, the decor was filled with the damned dangling from the ceiling, hosts dressed up as devils, and some devilish entertainment was provided. It was a bit claustrophobic, resembling a grotto, to add to the atmosphere.
It was a sensory overload designed to make you forget the streets of Paris outside.
It was the Haunted Mansion for adults, before Walt Disney was even born.
I’m assuming Antonin would have loved the Manoir de Paris, while it still existed.
The city has a habit of letting the best immersive horror places go to waste because of money.
Just imagine the amount of insanity we could be witnessing if everything didn’t have to be turned into beige modernism.
Oh and also, fuck Monoprix.
Photos taken from the Gallica/BnF website.