Blood Prison is located at the old Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield.
Visitors can find the reformatory at 100 Reformatory Rd. The drive from Columbus to Mansfield is easy-peasy. Basically, you need to get yourself on 71 N, and you’ll follow it practically all the way there.
Just pop on your favorite 70-minute playlist, and you’ll get there before you know it. The only thing that’s daunting about this drive is the destination.
This year, Blood Prison opened on September 25th and the haunt season runs until November 1st, Friday through Sunday nights.
| Blood Prison 2026 | The short version |
| Nights | Friday through Sunday nights, September 25th to November 1st |
| Hours | Gates open at 6:45 p.m. with timed entry from 7 p.m. |
| Tickets | $35 general admission, $55 Ultra Lightning, $80 Instant Access, plus fees. Online only. |
| Age | 10 and up. The Touch Pass is 18 and up, the lounge is 21 and up. |
| Where | 100 Reformatory Rd, Mansfield. Parking is included. |
The gates creak open at 6:45 p.m., and you go in on a timed ticket, in half-hour slots. Fridays and Saturdays run from 7 p.m. to midnight, and Sundays from 7 to 10 p.m. Plan on 40 to 50 minutes inside. It runs in the rain, too. This year’s edition is called Blood Prison: Apocalypse.
General admission is $35 before fees. The $55 Ultra Lightning Pass puts you in a shorter priority line, and the $80 Instant Access Pass skips the line altogether. Tickets are sold online only, and the haunt sells out, so pick a night early. Every ticket includes a free daytime tour of the reformatory, which you redeem later with your order confirmation.
For $7, you can get a Touch Pass that adds an extra element of terror to your experience. I’m not sure why anyone would want to make this haunted house any scarier than it already is. My hat is off to all those brave enough to go for it! The Touch Pass is strictly 18 and up, and it comes free with Instant Access, along with a spot in the 21-and-up Shanks & Spirits Lounge on Fridays and Saturdays. Everyone who goes through has to be at least 10. Parking is included with your ticket.
Back in 2017, when this post first ran, general admission was $20 and the Touch Pass was $5.
“The building is the star of the show every year,” said Vic Amesquita, the Haunt Manager at the Ohio State Reformatory.
The Ohio State Reformatory was built between 1886 and 1910 and remained an operational prison until 1990.
The building was designed by architect Levi Tucker Scofield, a man from Cleveland, who was famous for his super foreboding style. Aside from the Ohio State Reformatory, Scofield built the Lunatic Asylum of Ohio, Athens Lunatic Asylum, and many others. The ominous collection of buildings in Athens, Ohio has been renamed the Ridges and is notoriously haunted, just like the reformatory.
Blood Prison is a haunt that takes place in a building with actual paranormal activity.
“There’s been some things that have happened and we’ve been like, ‘Yeah that wasn’t us,'” said Amesquita.
He told stories of mysterious texts being sent from cell phones that were locked away inside of cars, shadows dancing on the ceiling that weren’t part of their special effects, and light switches being flipped when no one was standing near them.
“Paranormal activity goes on. It’s undeniable. I mean, even the biggest skeptics will come here and be like, ‘That was weird,'” said the Haunt Manager with a laugh.
After walking around the old prison and feeling a few chills run down my spine, I whole-heartedly agree the place has some spooky stuff that goes down, even if the only thing that jumped out and grabbed my arm was Navigator Photographer, Chelsea, who was absolutely terrified of the place.
The Ohio State Reformatory makes a terrifying set for Blood Prison.
“We just wanted to keep it what it is. It’s a prison. So we’ll have insane crazy inmates everywhere. I don’t care if you’re a clown, a zombie, you will be an inmate of some sort,” said Amesquita.
Guests will find themselves creeping through solitary confinement, the cell blocks, and several other parts of the prison as they try and find their way to freedom.
2017 was the first year that the haunt at the OSR took guests outside of the building as part of the experience.
But don’t get too excited when you taste the fresh air. Just because you’ve made it outside doesn’t mean you’ve escaped the horrors of Blood Prison just yet.
“That’s why we call it ‘Escape from Blood Prison,’ because you’re trying to escape,” explained Amesquita with a grin.
If you arrive at the Ohio State Reformatory and it seems eerily familiar, there’s a reason for it! It’s a pretty popular filming location, and has seen its fair share of the spotlight in both movies and television.
Most notably, it was the Shawshank State Penitentiary in the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption.
If you’re not into haunted houses or the paranormal, the Shawshank Trail will take you through the prison and you can check out the filming locations around Mansfield.
The Ohio State Reformatory still keeps props and costumes from The Shawshank Redemption in its Shawshank Museum, which is included with admission. The tour route passes Warden Norton’s office and Brooks’ room from the halfway house. It also passes (spoiler alert) the tunnel Andy crawled through. There’s one catch for fall visitors. While Blood Prison is set up, from Labor Day to mid-November, the daytime tours run a modified route that skips solitary confinement and the ground floors of the cell blocks. If you’d rather see the haunt’s sets with the lights on, the reformatory’s Beyond the Scare tour is $40 and runs September 25th through November 1st.
Other appearances in movies include Judas and the Black Messiah (2021), Fallen Angels (2006), Air Force One (1997), and Tango and Cash (1989).
Sylvester Stallone, who starred in Tango and Cash, came back to film another movie at the reformatory. Escape Plan: The Extractors filmed there and was released in 2019.
The Ohio State Reformatory has been a popular destination for paranormal investigation shows like Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures.
Regardless of why you want to go, whether it be for the awesome Blood Prison, the real-life ghosts, or to check out Andy Dufresne’s old stomping grounds, a visit to this old prison is a must.
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