MANSFIELD — The inmates will be waiting for you Friday night inside the historic Ohio State Reformatory.
That’s when a prison, once dubbed “Dracula’s Castle,” throws open its frightening doors for the 10th year of Blood Prison, one of the largest Halloween haunts in the Midwest.
The fright palace, which closed as a prison at the end of 1990, will become an active haunt on weekends from Sept. 26 through Nov. 2, and also on two Thursdays, Oct. 16 and Oct. 23.
Blood Prison owner Vic Amesquita was recently a guest on the News Man Weekly podcast. To learn more about the haunt, give it a listen below. The chat with Amesquita begins at about the 20:05 mark in the program.
Tickets for the haunt at 100 Reformatory Road on the city’s north side must be purchased online at bloodprison.com. The haunt has used time ticketing since 2022, reducing what had been hours-long lines of people waiting to enter.
(Below are photos taken Wednesday morning inside Blood Prison at the historic Ohio State Reformatory.)
