This Halloween, thrill-seekers and horror movie enthusiasts in Illinois are in for a once-in-a-lifetime experience that will startle all five senses.
If you are the kind of person who is fascinated by the tales of purportedly haunted places, gets a buzz from exploring abandoned buildings, and wishes to celebrate this Halloween with more than a costume party, this is for you. For there will be few Halloween experiences more chilling than a trip to what is the Midwest’s only haunted house experience inside a real abandoned prison.
The huge Joliet Correctional Center, known colloquially as Joliet Prison, opened as a haunted house for an inaugural Halloween experience in 2021 and will next month reopen to the public for its third year with an even more eerie array of experiences within the spookiest of settings.
The Joliet Prison, which was originally built as a women’s prison in 1896, closed in 2002 and lay abandoned for years until it was opened for paranormal and ghost hunting tours in 2018.
Fans of the paranormal have visited the haunted prison and claimed tormented voices can still be heard echoing around the prison’s walls. Whatever you choose to believe, the stories of notorious inmates and violent deaths during the days Old Joliet Prison was active are enough to make your hairs stand on end. Entering these eerie confines, however, provides another experience entirely.
The prison has become a famous landmark for its iconic castellated Gothic architecture and its appearances in television, film, and literature over the years.
The limestone structure’s interior and exterior are well-known for having featured in the motion picture The Blues Brothers, the gangster movie White Heat, Bob Odenkirk’s 2006 comedy Let’s Go to Prison, and as “Fox River State Penitentiary” in the first season of Fox Network’s Prison Break television show.
Now the innovators of national haunted attractions, 13th Floor Entertainment Group, will once again transform the old prison into one of the most exciting (and terrifying) Halloween attractions in the state.
Located in the annex building at 401 Woodruff Road in Joliet, the breathtaking haunted house usually opens towards the end of September with two different experiences with disconcerting narratives.
Guests will have their pulses race as they tiptoe down the prison’s long-abandoned creepy corridors, peek inside the bleak prison cells from years gone by, and look anxiously over their shoulders for the next sudden fright.
The themes of this year’s interactive and immersive experiences are yet to be revealed but organizers do promise “a spine-tingling adventure like never before!” on the official website.
“The 2023 season attractions are creeping closer, and we guarantee they’ll be the scariest yet. Brace yourselves for a heart-pounding experience that will leave you breathless. Stay tuned for more spine-chilling details as we unveil what’s in store for the bravest thrill-seekers,” it currently reads.
This year there will be mini escape rooms offering groups the chance to use clues and riddles hidden throughout themed rooms and race against the clock to escape in the given time.
Two bars named The Commissary and The Neon Cowboy Secret Bar, meanwhile, will offer themed food and drink including creepy cocktails to make sure patrons can spooky libations and imbibe some liquid courage for what’s to come.
Tickets are now on sale and cost $19.99 Head to hauntedprison.com for more information or look out for what’s in store via the Haunted Prison Instagram and Facebook profiles.
[Featured image courtesy of 13th Floor Entertainment Group]