How to haunt a gothic mansion

There have been rumours, though who knows if they hold their weight in ectoplasm. Ghosts haunt Casa Loma, the hilltop mansion that looms above Toronto's Annex neighbourhood. But that's not what lures thrill-seekers to the site every Halloween season. Those folks are in search of something fun, something theatrical — a night of terror with a PG rating. And since 2016, Legends of Horror has delivered. It's a large-scale haunted attraction that transforms the grounds into a foggy, 2 km-long gauntlet of animatronics, light projections and living-and-breathing beasties (or at least a bunch of humans playing them). And though the pandemic halted the 2020 edition, the production is back this October and will run through Halloween night. 

Preparations, though, are truly a year-round affair, because no rest for the wicked, as they say, and no rest for professional haunters either. Nadia Di Donato would be one of them. She's the vice president and creative director at Liberty Entertainment Group, a Toronto-based hospitality company that's had a long-term lease at Casa Loma since 2014.

"Planning really starts after tear-down," says Di Donato, talking about the scheming that goes into Legends' execution. She's led the creative vision for the attraction since its inception, when her company — always eager to draw visitors to Casa Loma ± seized on the theatrical potential of their actual gothic castle to develop a classic house of horrors.

"I'm used to designing restaurants and everything else that goes along with it," says Di Donato. "Once I started to dive into [Legends of Horror] I realized, yes, I think I do have a dark side," she laughs, and every fall, Casa Loma's in-house team is dragged to the netherworld with her. The staff is responsible for every spooky detail of decor, sound, lighting, special effects and wardrobe — a production that costs $700,000 a year to pull off. So what does it take to haunt this house?

CBC Arts spoke with a few of the creatives working behind the scenes, and according to them, the busiest part of the job begins in late summer when Casa Loma pulls the Halloween decorations out of storage. It's a massive stash, a literal pile of nightmares that sits in a 100,000-square-foot warehouse for most of the year. And once it's on site, the team gets down to work. Here's what's on their to-do list.

A truckload of something wicked this way comes 

Nadia Di Donato: When all of the props come off the truck, I'm there, you know, and I'm there immersed with my team.

Hayley Henrikson (production manager): Animatronics, I think we're at somewhere close to 70 or 80 animatronics. And then fog machines, I think we're definitely in the 30s, maybe a bit higher. … I know we have close to 200 lights. Speakers? Gawd. We have a lot of stuff that we take care of.

Carlos Lazaga (design manager): Every area has more or less a design concept. … We have the haunted mansion, which is like decadent horror, and then we have the clown section, for example.

I started [at Casa Loma] with Christmas. Christmas is my specialty. … But for Halloween we have to tell a story of decadence and horror, so it's challenging for us how to tell a story without trying to make it pretty. As designers we usually think, 'Make it pretty.' Legends is challenging in that way. We have to think outside the box. We have to add details; we have to think of the purpose of scaring people.

Haunted help wanted

Lisa Kaplan (programming manager): I start interviewing and recruiting actors in July. I start casting them. So at that point, I know who's in what role, and that allows me to buy the appropriate sizing for costumes and all that sort of thing.

Ordering Halloween masks in July seems early, but you know, some of our costumes come from really, really top companies around the world, mostly U.S. and Canada. … Some props I can get from Amazon, like super fast, but other more specialized ones, I don't want to be caught off guard and find out it's going to take two months to make and have delivered to me, so I start hunting. I sit down with Nadia, who's the creative director. I get a vision from her and I start sourcing right away.

I have 80 people in the cast right now. But there could be more. I'm hiring a few more actors even right now because I want to make it a little bit more robust. I see where there are some gaps.

As designers we usually think, 'Make it pretty.' Legends is challenging in that way.- Carlos Lazaga, design manager

Kaplan: The number one thing I'm looking for is literally the enthusiasm they show when they walk in.

I usually have the interview on the path. I tell them what the vibe is of the event. And as I'm talking, I can see their face. They're either getting a concerned look, or they're shaking with excitement. And after I explain what the role entails and I show them the setting, I look at them and I say, "Do you see yourself working here?" And right away, I get an answer like, "Oh my God, yes, oh my God, I'll do this for free!"

We're not performing Shakespeare in front of the Queen here, right? What we really want here is enthusiasm.

Designing terror

Di Donato: People today would rather have interactive experiences, so the setting is extremely important. … I feel that people are really looking for [that] more so nowadays than maybe six years ago when we first created it.

Seeing that, we created areas that are more like a maze that you would go through, or things that can be just a lot of play on the senses. Throughout our lower gardens we put in different animatronics that sort of ruffle the bushes, so it creates a different level of fright because it's more suspenseful rather than just what is created as set design.

Henrikson: If you're fully immersed, there's no area where you stop and think, "Oh, I got brought out of the experience for a second there."

Di Donato: Once we've set it all up, then we go through numerous walkthroughs. So every day it's a walkthrough.

When, for instance, I'm going through [the path] with my actor-director, I'm placing people. So we're walking through it and I'm saying, "This person has to be here, that person has to be here." Because you can't really get a sense through just writing it, you know — you have to kind of feel it, you have to sort of be immersed in it.

Kaplan: If I know someone is like, an acrobat and does parkour, they're going to be a goblin running through the forest. If I know someone can sing, I'll put them in a spot where they may be able to sing.

I will literally show [an actor] their zone and I'll be like, "This is your stage. … Use your skills and your judgment to the best of your ability to figure out the best way to scare guests."

Lazaga: The other day one of the performers asked, "Can I have a dead body here so I can pretend I'm operating?" They do make requests [for props].

We're not performing Shakespeare in front of the Queen here, right? What we really want here is enthusiasm.- Lisa Kaplan, programming manager

Di Donato: You know, there's a lot of changes that we make on the fly. … When we have our first night launch, which is always a private launch, I walk behind groups and I always kind of see what the reaction is because that's the best gauge possible. And then if things have to be tweaked, that's what we do.

Henrikson: In the first few years, we would have these things we called "fear flaps" that you would push through in the tunnel area. And that would be to kind of break up the zones a little bit.

Di Donato: We eliminated anything that would cause people to touch something. … Everything that is installed now is with the mindset of "no touch." And we also took out all of the fabrics that we used … just to kind of, you know, make it less of a risk for germs.

Kaplan: Even before the pandemic, the whole concept was a one-way system where people are distanced, because the best way to get a scare is when you can't see the people in front of you and behind you. … So I mean, it's like it was already almost following pandemic protocols.

They ain't afraid of no ghosts?

Kaplan: I work every single night that the actors are there, so I'm also the production manager for the actors. I am the first one in the change room. I'm the last one to leave. I check up on them as they're walking through.

I'm not a horror fan. (laughs) I hate being scared, I hate watching horror movies. But I love creativity and design. I love working with actors. I love creating.

I've memorized where every single thing is now, so I think I'm actually immune to [the scares]. And I take shortcuts as much as possible and walk aboveground as much as possible. The only thing I find really hard is the really dark areas, so I flick on my flashlight.

I hate being scared, I hate watching horror movies. But I love creativity and design.- Lisa Kaplan, programming manager

Kaplan: I told all my actors, "If you see me walking through the path and you scare me, I'm firing you on the spot." (laughs) You're not allowed to scare me!

We have a mutual respect. (laughs) I think maybe on the last day I'm going to be destroyed by them. I think there's a plot.

What makes a good scare?

Kaplan: There's an amazing amount of style put into this, so not only do we want to scare the heck out of people and make them laugh and all of that, we also want to wow them with the costumes, with the elegance of the actors, the drama of lighting and with the absolute gothic beauty of the set.

So it's a twofold thing. Like, we want them to be in awe of the gothic elegance of it all, but also be scared to death.