The Old Joliet Haunted Prison

Fun time. 3 different attractions in one price. It took us about an hour to get through all three (not including wait time in line) . We paid for the 2 Secret bars which have you a shot as you went through the haunted houses. Staff was friendly.

Went on Saturday night and it was packed. Regardless at what time you buy they don’t care for your slot so go still need to wait in lines for at least hrs to get to the first attraction (there’s a total of 3) and in all you gotta wait in line. They got overwhelmed since they weren’t following the green light and just letting people in so when you get into the attractions since it’s so congested you don’t get scared since the actors are not even back on their place. I still prefer Hells Gate!

The only thing good about this haunt is the location. Child actors, simple set design, cheap decor. Not impressed considering all the hype they try to create. They should put more back into this haunt. I would pass on this one. We rate this one 2 out of 5 pumpkins 🎃

Excellent! Drove 2 hours for the best frights of my life! The 1st attraction got your mind moving and was superb! Then zombie lazer tag to lighten things up before before going into the truly scary twisted, mind blowing fright! The atmosphere is campy b movie and so fun!! DJ, Food Truck, Beer Wagon & Merch! Recommend! Recommend!

Not sure why there are so many bad reviews but me & my family had such a great experience! We got the skip the line tickets and enjoyed all 3 attractions, felt like i was In a horror film due to me falling on the ground 🤣 but overall we had a good time definitely recommend getting the skip the line tickets cause the general admission line was very long and too cold to wait outside! I Hope everyone enjoyed their Halloween 🎃

There is absolutely huge potential for this haunt. The imposing structure is already in place! Being inside an actual prison and seeing all the cells brought up the idea of how difficult it would be to escape this situation. The realism created an extra sense of dread for us. The actors did a great job, and I will always acknowledge them. They have an extremely challenging task trying to bring the haunt to life. That being said, we left feeling a bit underwhelmed. It felt like an appetizer, and we were still hungry. There are 3 attractions, but I was a little surprised how quickly we made it through. Like I said, there is so much more this haunt can offer, and I know they will continue to try and improve.

This was a great event! From a historical perspective it was really neat to actually go in the old Joliet State Penitentiary and see the inside and the prison cells. It was also a well done haunted house. There were a few very dedicated actors/actresses that performed their roles well. All the employees were very friendly. The best part is going with teens and watching them scream and freak out!!! I would highly recommend checking out the Joliet Haunted Prison!!! Thanks for a great event!!!

One of the best haunted houses in the area! It doesn't hurt this is in an old decrepit prison. There are 3 areas to go through with plenty of side attractions including escape rooms, a food truck and a cocktail bar! And the front entrance makes a very colorful photo op! Parking is a bit limited so arrive early. Also, general admission will experience some long lines so I highly recommend getting a Fast Pass or a higher level of admission to skip the lines. May cost extra but it's worth it!

Where to begin. The spookiest thing about Joliet Haunted Prison is the location itself, which left me feeling a little leery about the whole experience once I left. Actually being there is a stark reminder of how much suffering happened there, and it makes attending a haunted house set in a place where people lived and died in tiny bleak rooms feel gross, especially in retrospect. Ah well. But on to the quality of the haunt itself, which I will frankly say is scammy at the price. Overall, the experience feels understaffed. There were just two scare actors wandering around when we got there, and they were barely engaging with people. Inside the attractions, live actors were far and few between, and mostly just walked around looking menacing rather than actively scaring us. Roughly 70% of the 'scares' are just mannequins and animatronics with lighting effects. The scariest thing in the whole place was walking down one corridor of empty cells expecting something to jump out - which never did. 1. DO NOT PAY FOR THE SECRET BARS. The 'Secret Bars' are, in reality, two small rooms off the main haunt areas with a few decorations where you are offered a thimble-sized shot of orange juice and vodka at one, and cranberry and vodka at the other. We were expecting somewhere we could hang out for a minute and order a drink - nope! You pay $15 for a pair of tiny shots and no experience. I felt like I might as well have lit fifteen singles with a match. 2. The first haunt area was the best executed. It's inside the cell block, and there were some genuinely good scares and scare actors, but also broad swathes of nothing. For example, the walk up to enter the cell block had 0 scares and no ambience. Compare this to Hellsgate, my previous 5/5 experience, where they had everything from scare actors to fire dancers. 3. The worst part of the experience was the 'laser tag' section. By 'laser tag,' they mean you get a laser gun with infinite ammo that you can fire at mannequins and animatronics wearing collars that light up. That is it. There were two scare actors in this entire section. I've seen this billed as 25 minutes - it took us a whole 10 minutes to walk through. Unbelievably bad. 4. The final labyrinth at least had some claustrophobia going for it and a few good scares. It also had three (count them THREE) guys with chainsaws because they had clearly run out of ideas, no real theming, and a section in the middle where they had dropped stinkbombs that smelled so vile my friend threw up. For the money, this just isn't worth it. Almost 70 dollars for a mediocre haunt experience and two thimbles of alcohol, when Hellsgate is around the corner? Save your money and don't waste your time.

2024 was my second time to this haunted prison. It's a fun experience to do with friends! Was I genuinely scared at any point? No. But I love the decor, creepiness of it & the fact that your ticket includes the haunted prison, zombie shooting, then a third attraction at the end, more of a maze with strobe lights. There's a bar in the the main area where you can drink, as well as food truck(s) and a T-shirt shop. You can always add on the hidden bar feature that allows you to take 2 shots at different points in the haunted house & zombie shooting. (Shots are generally liquor with a mixer). You can purchase thru Costco for cheaper ticket deals!

Talk about a wasted opportunity. A once in a lifetime venue to make an amazing haunted house, but it's let down by lazy design, lack of actors and being....boring. Haunt 1, the actual prison: Most cells were closed or had nothing going on in them. Lots of walking around and nothing happening. The zombie shootout, haunt 2, was clearly an afterthought and was laughable. Lots of walking around large empty spaces with barely any set decoration and every once in a while you'd have to shoot a mannequin. Haunt 3 was some sort of maze that literally had nothing in it. Just a flashing strobe light. Nothing to look at. Literally bare, wooden plank walls. One actor towards the end. Awful. Not recommended for the price. There are way better options.

As a person who loves scare this has to be one of the best Haunted Houses I have visited! There were a total of 4 attractions for $39!!! Well worth it!

I visited the Old Joliet Haunted Prison for the first time in 2022 - I visited again for a second time in 2023, and I have to say - MASSIVE improvement from last year. The haunted house has been extended from a 20 minute house to a 45 minute experience - the 1st part of the house is inside the actual cell blocks of the prison, the new 2nd part of the house is a zombie laser tag (they give you laser guns to shoot zombies, and the 3rd part of the house is a maze like outdoor walkthrough. They greatly improved from last year and I'd definitely recommend a visit this Halloween season.

I've been meaning to check out this haunted prison. I love the fact that it's actually in an old prison, which definitely adds to the scare factor. It is three attractions included with your ticket. The main prison haunt, zombie laser tag, and a maze. You can also purchase mini games (5 minute escape rooms). I enjoyed myself lots of Jumpscares but granted I get scared at basically everything. Overall, it was a fun experience. If you can find a non peak time to go that would be better. They try to have groups go through so you can experience it and get the scares to yourself but we ended up catching up to a group so they got the scares. It's a haunted house so I'm not going to get very detailed, that would ruin the fun.

Scary! My wife was freaked out to the core. We went for a fast pass option, which was definitely nice. Skip the line would be even more fun than regular had a lot of people in them which was probably an hour wait since we had about 20 people ahead of us and it took us over 20 minutes. Each group had a Headstart of a minute and a half so that there was a gap in both the groups. We can say bigger the group, faster the line moved There were 3 fun areas, fun area #1 was awesome very scary watch out for scary ghosts everywhere. Area#2 killing zombies was all right! Was more like easy killings Area #3 too much flashy, got me dizzy. Overall a fun experience took an hour and 15 mins, highly recommend.

The staff was friendly. The wait for general admission was not too bad at 7pm on a Sunday. Longest wait was for the 1st of the 3 attractions. Attractions are both outside and inside. They do have food you can purchase if you want to stay and play some o the lawn games outside.

We went to this haunted prison via a fast pass entry! Damn, the whole idea of walking into a real prison converted into a haunted house was extremely nerve racking! The setup was almost like walking in to a movie especially the entry, the lighting and the effects from the smoky air was totally making the whole setup very spooky! It had 3 different zones- 1) prison with zombies 2) shooting the zombies 3) chainsaw Honestly I freaked out in the first zone but the other two didnt do much to me! I was more freaked out by the lady who was playing the Nun- man she was spot on and freaked the hell out of people waiting in the line Overall totally worth the experience

Don't buy the jm hidden bar tickets it's just a beer yiu can pay less at the drink counter while waiting. Went to see it. I do love haunted houses. So I did the whole package with all the extras. Was a little pricey but not to bad. We a started with getting our wristbands for our fun cocktail we were supposed to have in the second event. We were there early so we waited till they let us into the first house. I will say it was pretty cool. There's some amazing things they do. I don't want to give away anything but a lot of jump scares and really good actors, so it was enjoyable. then we made our way to the second event, which was a laser tag kill a zombies and that event is where we were supposed to get our cocktail this I do have a problem with so I paid 10 extra dollars per person to get a fun cocktail. I don't remember the name of it, but it was advertised as a shot so you're supposed to do one shot and then continue on our way, well we get there no shot we were offered a beer that we had just paid only six dollars at the bar out front while waiting. But I paid $10 for the shot they advertised and got the same beer but it cost so much more what a joke. It was not something I drink or wanted. This was also something I had to drink so fast it was awful. Instead of taking a quick shot and walking on we has we didn't want to sit there all evening so that was not fun. Imagine if yiu had a kid waiting on you that would really suck. But the girl behind the bar was so nice and apologetic. I did explain. It was not her fault so we weren't mad at her. We're mad at the company. Then we did go through and finish the laser tag and went to the third event, and that again had some good scare tactics. It's amazing the builds they have on this project. They did really good construction and work for the set up of this haunted house, I definitely do recommend it. I would not get the cocktail pass because that was false advertisement. we did do the little escape rooms. I have never done one of those before so that was an interesting experience. Definitely worth a few extra bucks for that something need to do for somebody who's never done it all in all were the check out just check into whether or not you want extras and don't recommend getting the shot cause I don't have it for cheaper off just getting a beer. They need to nit false advertise the events. That was my big issue with the bar in lazer tag. Don't do it now worth it just grab the cheaper beer at the bar.

What fun! There are three parts to this attraction. The first part is a walk through of the old part of the smaller prison building. It isn't small , though. It is two levels of anxiety and suspense! My wife tapped out 1/3 of the way through the first attraction. The second part is zombie laser tag. That's pretty cool. The maze is also scary and suspenseful. Lots of screams! I don't want to describe everything in detail because you need to experience this yourself. Get down here and subject yourself to fear!

I... was not impressed to say the least. I booked here with my husband as I love haunted houses and have yet to come here. Haunted house at the old Joliet prison? Heck yes!!!! I got the general admission tix as well as the neon cowboy tix as well. Getting here was easy enough, and was able to find parking easily, ebmven with a crowded parking lot. There's 3 events: inside with the cell blocks, zombie tag, and an outdoor maze. The line for the 1st even was long, but moved quickly. Super cool to be inside the actual prison! Actors costumes were great, and the set was super cool. After that, the rest of the night stunk. The line for the 2nd and 3rd events were OVER an hour long!!!! People were leaving the line, and we even wondered if we should've just leave too. Did not help the line was outdoors and it was drizzling, but that's no fault to this place. After we finally got to the maze, it appeared they began to rush people through as the place was now officially closed for the night. The tag and maze were great concepts, but for me to wait over an hour for two events that took less than 20 minutes to go through with very few actors was not worth it. And since I spent all that time in line, the bar was long closed so I wasted $20 on the bar tickets. Also, it looked like we could just buy drinks at the bar so what was the point of the tickets anyways? Awesome concept of a haunted house at the prison, but they need to really work out the kinks when it comes to the lines.

The Joliet Haunted Prison. Wow. So I traveled here with my mother to get our socks scared off, and they delivered. The attractions were pretty fun, especially my mother getting lost in the- wait, if someone else that has not been there is looking at this, they will know what to expect. And we can't have that WOULD WE? So yeah, it was very cool and I totally recommend it to any horror fans and Sam and Colby fangirls. Very cool to walk through a prison from 1858!

This was our first "real" haunted house. My boyfriend and I decided to take two of our teenagers and one was super scared (enjoyable amount) and our boy was scared but claimed not to be (typical teenage boy). I myself don't scare easily and have a tendency to be hyper vigilant and ruin my own scares, although I don't ruin it for the rest. The rest of my party was scared and screaming the whole way through. Once we were out of the main attraction we were pointed our way to the rest of the attractions which I didn't know was included in our tickets, a nice surprise. We went into a zombie laser tag, it was small and quick but got a few scares. Next was a mini haunted house which was also a maze, this was fun and got even more screams. Overall it was a great time and enjoyable. I would recommend but next year we will try to go to another which is scarier since we completed this one and I figure they will do the same every year and it can get boring.

Super spooky and very fun! My wife's first haunted house and she loved it! We can't wait to come back again next year t year.

last year's haunt was a 10/10 compared to all the other locations in the area! it was by far my favorite - and they kept the historical aspects to the annex building, which is truly what i was most impressed by.

This was very fun and I enjoyed it, but they need to remove the laser tag. It was not enjoyable at all.

They need to get rid of the laser tag. It did not work and it was a joke. My experience would have been so much better without it.

I had a great time here and enjoyed all the jump scares, even though my fiancé had to warn me each time there was one coming up (hahaha). I don't see any point in the laser tag though, feel like they could put a better a better attraction in. But anyway love this place.

Definitely worth a visit! Not only do you get scared out of your mind, but you also get to see the inside of the old women's prison. The cells are small, but walk by quickly because you never know what will jump out at you!!! The food truck outside has some really tasty sandwiches. They also have a drink bar. Parking was easy. The line moved fast. I would opt for the fast tickets because the closer we get to Halloween, the more crowded it will get. All in all, a great experience!!

It's eerie knowing John Wayne gacey was executed there, but the experience itself was very blah. Underwhelming for sure

What a spooktacular time! The wait was a little long but worth it. Great lighting, great makeup artist and the staff did a good job trying to get you to jump or scream. About a 30 minute haunted tour time. Definitely worth it for the price but come earlier it seemed to be getting very busy when we left as we came at the 7:00 p.m. slot.

This ended up being a pretty good starter haunted house for my 9yr old, as it was her first year going to one. Don't come here if you're looking to be scared as an adult...or anyone over the age of 12. However, the chick who managed the lines and took photos obviously had a major stick up her ass. She, easily, let 80 people go from the vip and fast pass lanes before letting my group of 4 in. No other group in my line waited that long. Not sure what her issue was, but it was clearly targeted as she was avoiding eye contact to an incredible degree. I will be taking my money elsewhere permanently.

Had a decent time here, Actors are scary and fun. I went the day before Halloween, I was the by 7 when they opened and it was a wait of probably 30min. I'm definitely recommending buying a no wait pass because the line on general admission got super long, long!

Not good Poor imagination , not scary at all The price is to high for waitng in line 1 hour

Going here is a waste of money and time i feel like i got robbed without a gun! Fall in line for 3hrs.. and not a single things in attraction thats scares me! Actors are there just for a check not even trying to scare people. Boring as hell! Dont even go there! If you dont feel like throwing your money in the garbage! 1 -10 Il give them 0 thats how bad this place is! Doesnt deserve a 1

What a cool location If you are looking to do an paranomal investigation make sure that when you buy your tickets that they are for the Paranormal Investigation, or the Ghost Hunting 101. The haunted history tour doesn't cover the paranormal or ghost stories.

Great and spooky time getting scared here this Halloween season. The prison adds a little more reality to the haunted experience, I felt a little rushed but mostly due to the people behind me. The haunted house has plenty of ups and downs to have you shaking and trembling. I recommend getting there 30 minutes early to park and settle in. There is food trucks and alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks available for purchase. They also have 3 bonus attractions on site for purchase as well.

The prison is creepy all on its own. Going through looking at real cell blocks was the best part. But they were understaffed. It has a lot of potential.

Well like every other walkthrough haunt this one was good but not the best. On top of my coming from Chicago to Joliet I had a flat tire so thank goodness I had a chance to make it here on a spare. The special effects and all the things were pretty decent in regards to using the actual Joliet prison. Since Halloween is coming I also had a free admission unfortunately I wish my close friend would have came but he had just recovered from the pandemic. And he had to go to Florida. Other than that I'm solo so I'm just expecting all these thrills by myself. It wasn't bad but it wasn't the best so I don't know if spending almost $30 for one admission was worth it but for free I guess I shouldn't really complain. Anyways do give this a try if you have nothing better to do around the Halloween weekend. This is going to be up to November 6th which is interesting that they're still having it after Halloween.

We went last night, our second year in a row. When you're in line, you get a great smell of the dirty, nasty unsanitary portapottys. There was maybe 2 actors outside that you barely saw. The main haunted house itself has slim to none actors. It's basically a walk through of scary objects and the old prison cells. The second attraction we waited 2x longer than the haunted house. In the line were small tree stumps that were coming out of the ground. In the dark, you can't see them. A group of 5 only got 3 laser guns, and there were maybe 2 actors in their zombie land. The last attraction wasn't bad, but not worth the wait time to walk through fog and strobe lights. We saw 2 people being carted out in a wheel chair with ice and bandages on their foot. The ground anywhere you walk through the property and 2 attractions is slippery, and craters for holes to walk through.

Overall, this is a great haunted house. It's creepy just pulling into the parking lot but once at the gate all the staff were friendly. Once closer to the front door the ghosts start appearing. I found the costumes and makeup to be top notch. Some actors were better than others, but where that's lacking it's made up for in scenery and atmosphere. Nothing like walking through an actual prison with spooky beings all around. My niece who is 13 attended with me and we had a blast screaming and running arm and arm through this haunted house. The reasons I'm going with 4 stars instead of 5 is that it felt a tad short and there were some slow spots where i thought they could add some more actors or more stimulating visuals. Overall though, this is one you should check out simply for the fact that it's in a real shuttered prison. Ooh eee! Oh and the second attraction where you get to shoot ghosts is fun too!

Scared the crap out of me. Good luck. There are three attractions. My third was the favorite.

It's cool because it's in a prison, but the scares were pretty weak. They should have more prisoners hitting their cell doors really hard when they're closed though I'm not sure the doors could take a good hit! I ripped a piece right off by accident! Also they should sneak out and scare people from their cells and could do alot more with the cells. There's a zombie lazer tag thing also that isn't bad but no rankings or ratings The Old Joliet Prison tour is across the street and a seperate company. Cool stuff.

This haunted house had great ideas, but not good execution. The haunted house had many props and not actors, so it wasn't really scary. The laser tag part was a cool idea, but also not scary. We waited an hour in line for both, and they only took about 5 minutes each and this was around 8pm. The best part for me was the escape rooms they have. Overall, it was okay, but not worth all the money. It's probably a fun place for kids.

We try and do a haunted house / attraction once or twice a year and have hit most in the area. This one came up new this year and being that it's in an actual prison, this sounded awesome and I was really looking forward to it. We paid for the skip the line passes and had a 8 people in our group. So the cost wasn't exactly cheap. We arrived and first and foremost, find armed security at the entrance with a legit metal detector doing full out purse checks and pat downs. Wtf... We get through and find out the "line" was maybe 20 people. Ok.... Well it is a new attraction so not maybe known yet? We go ahead of everyone and start the haunted house. The inside of the prison was awesome. You're in a legit cell block, the environment was perfect for the attraction, it's dark and creepy, awesome. Except for MAYBE the 5-6 actors we encountered? The rest were all props, jump scares from pictures / displays and setups? Why so little of actors? MAYBE 20 minutes of walking and we were done.... Really? We get outside to the next attraction only to find.... A HUGE corral point of which 100+ people were in. The skip the line, NO LONGER APPLIES, and you wait like everyone else. Are you kidding? What was the point of paying $50+ if you were going to hit a corral point / line that was 5X longer than what we even encountered at the front? The next attraction, a "Zombie hunt" was pretty neat. They give you guns that are like laser tag and you go after the zombies on the course. The problem, however, was maybe 3 actors on the whole course? The rest were all props wearing collars you shot. Course took maybe 10 minutes? Drop your guns and poof, you're done unless you wanted to pay extra for an "escape room." My summary. Save your money. Spend it on Dungeon of Doom or HellsGate. Two attractions which are similar in cost and MUCH more worth it. My whole group was pretty disappointed with this one. It needs to be longer, have more actual actors with less props. Also, tone down on the security guys. This isn't a bar or a rock concert. Getting felt up by a guy who looked like Brock Lesnar on a bender, did not put my night off to a good start.

Please don't waste your money was a complete let down. Not scary at all(except the lines). You go thru the haunted house which the only thing cool about it was the prison, then you go stand in another line were you get a gun to go thru (what I think was suppose to be a zombie thing) except there was only fake dolls and 1 character

One of the coolest things here, is that it's actually haunted. If you can get yourself to focus and block out all the added entertainment, you can feel the sadness and anger the prisoners had here. You can hear the voice of a young child calling for its mother. But you have got to block out the actors there (which is hard to do since they are perfectly timed for jump scares). But go for yourself and see if you can pick this up as well.

It wasn't worth the money. The scares were really weak. They had more robotic things trying to scare you than actual people. Then they take you to a second part that is similar to laser tag. It was worse than that prison. Don't waste your money here. Go to Statesville instead.

i would have given no stars if possible this place is a lie from the get go after placing my order they ask you to pick a specific time on arrival ie 6 om 7 pm 8pm whennin fact none of this even matters you get there and stand in line with hundreds of other chumps and wait your turn then on line you can purchase extras lol the neon cowboy bar oooohhh where you can enjoy libations for $10 dollars extra in reality its the size of a outhouse with onenperson giving you a cheap jellow shot for your 10 bucks pluse 1.25 on line fee that they dont tell u ,in addition for the amount of pepole they had only bathrooms were 5 porta potties that were disgustingly filled to capacity with no toilet paper available you could smell them from 1000 yards ,the haunted house was mediocre at best not worth the 30 dollar general admission and the online service fee .also dont waste your time emailing thir help desk THEY DONT REPLY . BIG SCAM

On foe nem grave this place sucks. We came in thinking we gonna get scared out of our minds like the reviews claim. The "haunted jail" part was so short and not thrilling. The path to get there from the parking lot was longer than the actual prison. Then we shoot some guns? If I wanted to shoot some guns I would go to chukee cheese or sum. Run my $35 back cause this was not it on bro ‍‍

They did a great job converting this old prison!! And the yard laser tag is lots of fun!!! My issue is with the number of people they let in at once. I went on a pretty slow Friday night but instead of letting people wait in line they just put everyone in the haunted house in groups of like 10 but then the groups are only spaced like 30 seconds apart so we had pretty much like a line of 40 people walking single file and only the people in front got the jump scares!!! Extremely disappointed!! Like I waited 5 mins with GA at 7:30pm. I would have rather waited longer for a better experience. This was my first 13th floor group haunted house and I'm not sure if I will be back. Don't recommend wasting ur money till they figure this out better. I brought it up to an employee we saw and they just laughed and walked away. Think this is why reviews are hit or miss...

TOTAL CRAP! It's listed as inside the prison, but it's some crappy haunted house in a parking lot! It's not even remotely scary and they were incredible under staffed. Complete waste of money! And you can't even get a refund even though they lied about where and what it is! If I could give it zero stars I would! Don't waste your time or your money.