When it comes to being scared, I’m a bona fide baby. I haven’t watched a horror movie in 15 years (the last one I saw before instituting a complete ban was ”The Human Centipede,” from which I’ve never recovered), and I can’t watch “Criminal Minds” alone. I get a little spooked if I have to sleep too close to a door, which can, under no circumstances, be ajar. As a kid, I was known to bound up the stairs at breakneck speed because I always felt like someone was chasing me.
So why, dear reader, did I say yes to this assignment and spend a recent Friday evening being terrified by choice at Martino Manor, a beloved Toronto haunted house attraction that’s rumoured to make people cry? (Don’t get me wrong — I like a good cathartic weep. I just prefer the Pam and Jim wedding episode of “The Office” to get that job done.) I could say it’s because my three-year-old son is obsessed with Halloween and I want to face my fears so I can tell him about my spooky experience when he’s older. Really, it’s because Martino Manor, which has nightly lineups down the block, sits right behind my favourite comfort Italian restaurant, Mamma Martino’s in Etobicoke. I figured I could drown the scary memories in spaghetti bolognese, cheesy garlic bread and a glass of house white when I was done being spooked.
As I wait for my tour behind the haunted house, which is actually a series of small structures all leading to a rundown house behind the parking lot of the restaurant, I immediately question all my life decisions. This “haunt” (inner-circle lingo, I learn, for a haunted house) is the real thing. I’m greeted by several grotesque animatronic characters, including a surly skeleton who tells the fictional story behind the haunt, a machete-wielding man with a chilling grin and a giant werewolf that looks all too real. I stand patiently as several of the evening’s scare actors arrive, in full costume, some of them never-breaking character as they slip into what looks like a mausoleum. We’re not even inside the haunted house yet and I have the heebie-jeebies from a particularly ghoulish mortician gazing at me. Despite the grassroots feel of the small but mighty operation, its sets and cast of characters are impressive.
“A lot of the other haunts have a big production value, but what I have here is something that no one will ever be able to beat — it’s passion,” says Fernando Martino, son of Mamma Martino’s owner Bruno Martino, who started the haunted house in 2017, transforming a rundown home his father owned into Martino Manor rather than renovate it to rent. “The day after I start taking [the sets] down this year, I’m back in there to build for next October.”
Martino, now 28, is clearly dedicated to his creepy craft. The horror aficionado grew up collecting horror figurines, watching classic ‘80s slashers and creating elaborate Halloween displays at the family home before dabbling in scare acting himself. It was doing that work that he met Kyle Dietrich, who wears many hats at the haunt including creating social media content, doing some of the audio work (including that of the curmudgeonly skeleton out back) and donning a sort of undead master of ceremonies costume to roam around the manor. Martino considers himself largely a one-man show, otherwise, save some help with costumes from his mom. As far as set design and building, it’s Martino who’s running around right up until showtime making sure the experience is perfect. (I even see him scoot by me with a drill in hand just before doors open.)
“I won’t let one thing not be operational at night. It eats me up inside to have even one feature down,” says Martino. “It’s all about experience for me. I won’t sacrifice anything for the customers and the experience of others.”
And Martino isn’t overselling “the experience.” I walked through about a third of the haunt by myself (in the name of journalism, of course) and it was spine-chilling, in large part thanks to both its impressive set design and its cast of scare actors who give it their all every night. There’s something about a creepy little girl’s bedroom complete with headless dolls and a grown man in a rubber apron walking toward you holding a meat cleaver that’s petrifying even if you know, intellectually, that it’s all fake.
“I always hire people who have a bit of me inside them,” Martino tells me of auditioning scare actors. “The people that have the passion and drive to be here every single night; those are people that are going to get the job here at Martino Manor — the ones that want to be here and ‘care for the scare,’ as I like to say.”
Why do people voluntarily torture themselves this way, seeking out terrifying experiences? “One explanation is that we have a physiological response to horror — you can think of it as akin to riding roller coasters,” says Susan Burhoe, a professor at the Centre for Initiatives in Education at Carleton University who specializes in pop culture. “The fear creates a state of heightened arousal and an adrenalin rush. This kind of ‘fear play’ (going to a haunted house, watching a horror movie) allows us to experience these feelings in a safe and controlled environment without — presumably — any real danger.”
It’s true, the danger I felt was entirely artificial and yes, kind of thrilling. I screamed, I laughed, I dropped F bombs (a lot of them). But I survived. And honestly, it was — dare I say — pretty fun.
“Regardless of how much pleasure we derive in the moment, researchers suggest that scary stories and experiences can facilitate a cathartic release,” adds Burhoe. “Confronting grotesque or frightening scenes allow us to confront feelings of fear and anxiety in a controlled way, giving us a fictional context to explore emotions we might otherwise avoid.” Maybe I don’t need my comfort shows now, after all.
So, what’s next for Martino and his house of horrors? “I was 18, 19, when we started working on it and it was just a skid maze of little pallets behind the house,” Martino says. “Now I have a full-blown embalmer’s house. I’ve got a small 1950s home. I’ve got another little morgue back there. It’s growing every year, and I won’t stop. I’m going to keep building until I relocate and I’ve got more space, and then when I get to that space, I’m not going to stop. The only thing that’s going to stop me is when I get put in a coffin.” Cue the sinister organ music.
As far as my post-haunted house reward? Sadly, this crybaby turned into a pumpkin at 8 p.m. and had to get home to put her kid to bed, so there was no ooey-gooey pasta for me. I can’t say the same for Martino. “Every night, I’m eating pasta. It keeps me energized.”
