A haunted doll and 13 restless spirits lurk inside this Ontario attraction

Diablo Manor, a historic Ontario estate in Spencerville, is the horrifying home of Scott McClelland, a horror expert, artist, character actor, and third-generation sideshow showman whose family history is steeped in all things strange and unusual.

Each spooky season, it also becomes a hair-raising immersive attraction that you can visit.

McClelland opens the doors of his eerie home to just eight guests at a time on select days each week, offering an evening that combines a tour of his extensive collection of oddities, dinner and dessert, and a 75-minute paranormal performance that culminates in a séance.

For McClelland, the attraction is synonymous with a lifetime spent in the world of magic. His grandfather ran Canada's largest travelling sideshow, N.P. Lewchuck's Travelling Shows, from 1920 to 1968, and McClelland knew early on that he wanted to follow in his footsteps.

"When I was 11 years old, I received a letter from my grandfather asking me if I wanted to be a magician and showman like him," McClelland recalls. But the letter came with a challenge: learn the Cups and Balls, a classic magic trick, within six months and perform it for his grandfather. If he failed to fool him, he would never be allowed to work in the industry.

Scott McClelland.

McClelland was instantly intrigued and got to work.

He performed the trick with flying colours and soon began his apprenticeship with his grandfather, a journey that continued into his early 20s. He became a professional magician and, within four years, remembers that "I had already appeared in a couple of television spots about my life and career as a young performer." 

In 1992, well after his family had bid farewell to the sideshow business, McClelland founded Carnival Diablo in Calgary, Alberta, a travelling sideshow that paid homage to his family's history.

For the next 34 years, he built a career around the strange and unusual, assembling a collection of more than 120 freakshow artifacts and training performers in classic acts like fire eating, sword swallowing, bug eating, and impaling.

"I trained each performer, because at that point there were no sideshow trainers in Canada," McClelland admits. He even developed The Paranormal Show, a production that explored the darker side of paranormal activity and featured Victorian-style séances.

Now, McClelland has brought much of that experience and his collection to Diablo Manor, transforming the age-old building into an intimate experience for visitors looking for something beyond the usual Halloween haunt.

Diablo Manor.

"I have taken the bulk of my collection and my over 40 years of experience as a producer of the strange and bizarre on stage and put these talents and artifacts into the Diablo Manor," he explains, describing the experience as "a completely immersive evening of phantasmagorical wonders and a tour of all of my most famous artifacts."

Among the artifacts on display is Waldo the Homicidal Ventriloquist Dummy, which McClelland describes as the collection's most talked-about and rarest oddity.

According to McClelland, Waldo once belonged to Harry Tomani, a ventriloquist who began performing in the Lyceum Circuit in the 1920s. But the dummy's history, he says, was anything but lucky for its owners.

It's alleged that Tomani was found dead in his dressing room on the opening night of the tour, with a coroner's report stating that he had been beaten to death. McClelland also recounts a series of tragic events and disasters connected to the dummy's subsequent owners and its time in a Vaudeville museum.

The museum was eventually destroyed in a gas explosion in 1978, McClelland explains, with Waldo being the only object recovered intact from the rubble.

Waldo the Homicidal Ventriloquist Dummy.

"I procured Waldo in 1984, making him my first artifact in my collection," he says. Believing Waldo has a paranormal history, McClelland adds that "he now sits roped and chained to the shelving unit he is displayed on for the public's safety and mine." 

And if a supposedly ill-fated ventriloquist dummy isn't enough to send a shiver down your spine, the manor itself has a history that adds to the eerie atmosphere.

Built in 1846, the structure originally served as the region's first Orange Men's Temple. McClelland, who has lived in the building for eight years, says he has experienced unexplained activity there himself.

"I have been woken many nights by the feeling of a presence watching over me as I sleep," he alleges. "When I awake, I can see it in the darkness, blacker than night, standing over me at a height of 8 feet tall." 

He describes what happens next: the figure sometimes sits on his bed, creating the sensation of its weight pressing into the springs.

McClelland has also hosted professional ghost hunters to investigate the property, saying their investigations identified at least "13 different entities in the house." 

Despite the reported paranormal activity, McClelland says he has lived at the manor without any harm coming to himself or his guests.

For those brave enough to spend an evening surrounded by strange artifacts and unsettling tales, the experience begins with a guided tour of the collection McClelland and his grandfather assembled.

Guests then move into the dining room for a three-course meal and "creepy dessert" before heading to the parlour for a Victorian-style magic show and séance.

McClelland says he wanted dinner to be integral to the experience, not just an afterthought. "I added the meal as part of the evening, because I wanted it to be a full sensory experience, and things you are served are tasty and unforgettable." 

The three-course menu is curated with the sinister setting in mind. It starts with Diabolical Deviled Eggs, followed by the main course, Lucifer Lasagna, baked in a tomb vessel for added effect. The evening wraps up with Monkey Head Mousse, served in a monkey head pan.

Diablo Manor runs Thursday to Sunday, with experiences starting at 7 p.m. Tickets to the year-round attraction cost $100 plus applicable taxes and fees and can be purchased directly from the attraction's website.

"The Diablo Manor is an accumulation of everything I love in the world of horror, and the strange, and the bizarre mingled with a Victorian sensibility,” McClelland signs off. 

Diablo Manor is located at 10 South St. in Spencerville, Ont.