With a background in theatre and in the trades, and his birthday in October, Chad Carlson has always had an interest in designing his own haunted house.

Carlson says it was all began with a simple display about ten years ago, when he lived in Stoney Plain.

“It’s simply started out with a BBQ in the front yard. And in the BBQ I put a rotisserie with a head on it, and it made the front page of the local paper, and it caused a bit of a stir that it was the front picture of the paper. From there on, just the comments about how could it be on the front of the page, just kind of fuelled my ambition to go further.”

And when he decided to build his own house here in Lacombe, Carlson made sure to customize it to his needs.

He says he has come a long way since the severed head in the BBQ.

“The plan was to do haunted houses in it, so I did put two entrances to the garage, there’s a front and back entrance. We run 7 projectors, so again when we started out we had no projectors. I started with one TV, just showing some creepy images, and now I have three TV's. Animatronics, so I’ve accumulated animatronics from different places over the years.”

Carlson is also a member of the Canadian Haunters Association, which is a community of Halloween enthusiast who share tips on creating your own custom Halloween experience.

Carlson Manor Haunt is located at 54 Erica Drive, and opens this Saturday (October 28th) and runs nightly until Halloween night, 6-9pm.

Admission is FREE, however, donations for the Lacombe Food Bank are encouraged and will be gratefully accepted.