Mansfield, OH — Christmas Incarceration, Blood Prison’s Christmas haunted house, returns to the Ohio State Reformatory on December 5, 11 and 12, with tickets from $25. Guests walk through cell blocks decorated for Christmas, inside the prison where The Shawshank Redemption was filmed, past scare actors playing unhinged inmates and the Warden’s Widow.
Blood Prison’s promo video for Christmas Incarceration.
What Is Christmas Incarceration?
Christmas Incarceration is the December version of Blood Prison, the haunted house that fills the Ohio State Reformatory’s cell blocks with scare actors and built sets each fall. “Deep inside the notoriously haunted Ohio State Reformatory, Christmas has gone straight to hell. The halls are decked, the inmates are unhinged, and the Warden’s Widow is spreading holiday cheer the only way she knows how… through emotional trauma!” Blood Prison’s site says of the 2026 event.
In 2025, guests wandered “through the shadowy cell blocks” past “apparitions of deranged inmates and nightmarish guards,” Blood Prison’s site said at the time, and Christmas Incarceration ran Fridays and Saturdays from December 5 through December 13, with gates at 6:45 p.m.
The Ohio State Reformatory is a former prison in Mansfield, in north-central Ohio, that the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society runs as a museum and tour site. Blood Prison is built into the reformatory’s cell blocks, and Vic Amesquita of Blood Prison told HAN in 2020 that “the cell blocks is really kind of what makes us different than everybody else.” Amesquita also called the reformatory “a big Gothic castle looking old prison.”
Christmas Incarceration 2026 Dates and Tickets
Christmas Incarceration runs three nights in 2026, with gates opening at 6:45 p.m.:
- Saturday, December 5
- Friday, December 11
- Saturday, December 12
Both ticket types include lounge access, an indoor waiting area and free on-site parking:
- General Admission ($25): standard entry, with the regular queue and wait times.
- Instant Access ($50): skips the line and includes the optional Touch Pass.
For a limited time, the code XMASBOGO takes half off a second ticket of any type. Admission is limited, and tickets are sold online only, not at the event.
Both prices are lower than Blood Prison’s Halloween season this fall, when General Admission was $35, VIP Instant Access was $80 and Lounge Access was a $15 add-on. At Halloween, the Touch Pass was for guests 18 and older and marked them for hands-on contact from the actors.
Age Limit, Rules and Getting There
- Everyone must be at least 10 years old, and guests who look younger may be asked for proof of age, such as a birth certificate or student ID.
- All sales are final, with no refunds.
- Photos and video are not allowed inside the building.
- Outside alcohol is not allowed, and Blood Prison’s Shanks & Spirits Lounge sells beer, seltzers, ciders and specialty cocktails to guests 21 and older with a valid photo ID.
- The route has multiple stairs, narrow hallways and obstacles, and Blood Prison says the event is not accessible to guests who are physically or visually impaired.
- Blood Prison runs rain or shine, and the reformatory is at 100 Reformatory Road in Mansfield.
- The reformatory is open for daytime tours seven days a week, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and the building also has escape rooms, listed on Blood Prison’s site.
More Christmas Haunted Houses
Hersheypark’s Estate of Evil, one of its Dark Nights haunted houses, reopens as a Christmas open house at Christmas Candylane on select dates November 13 through January 3, and my Estate of Evil story has its rooms. Christmas Incarceration was also on HAN’s holiday haunted house lists in 2021, 2024 and 2025, and the 2025 list has the other haunts that opened last December.
Blood Prison’s 2026 Halloween season, Apocalypse, ended November 1, and its dates, ticket tiers and prices are on my Blood Prison 2026 page. Christmas Incarceration tickets are at bloodprison.com.
Top photo: a cell block tier inside the Ohio State Reformatory, 2014. Photo: Marianodemiguel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
