Statesville Haunted Prison is a Haunted House launched in 1996 as a Haunted Hayride, with it eventually turning into a haunted house attraction, soon becoming one of the top haunted houses in the state.

But then during the lockdown when Covid-19 started it caused the attraction to be shut down, but this year it came back after the restrictions were lifted in 2021.

When I had visited the haunted house all seemed well but there seemed to be a lack of staff as signs stating there was a shortage of employees were posted around the outside and inside of the attraction area.

Unfortunately, during my visit to the haunted house as someone who bought general admission as I encountered a long wait, totaling to around 30 to 40 minutes, just to get inside of the area toward the haunted house as it was split up into sections for people who were there for the farm and those there for the haunted house. 

After waiting in that line we ended up in another line that had an extreme wait of 3 hours for people without the VIP pass, during the wait rock music blasted and several of the prisoners had come through and gave some of the visitors a good scare like going in front of visitors who were too distracted.

But, at the end of the line, I finally got in and was quickly huddled under the watchtower which was just in front of the entrance of the prison, where prisoners would stand and fire off a fake machine gun.

After that, we were quickly huddled into the prison where the scares began. 

With visitors being yelled at to “line up,” I ended up in front of “The Warden,” a devil that was sealed under the prison for hundreds of years. He sat on his throne after escaping, and gave visitors a speech about the horrors they would encounter in the prison.

The Warden then pulled a lever, activating two electric chairs, shocking and killing the prisoners that were seated in them. A gate fell, stopping just a few feet above my head, which had given me a good scare.

I then walked into the first room, which contained pipes with bits and pieces of prisoners stuck in the cracks, all alongside a scare of pressurized air blasting at us, making a loud sound, spooking some visitors in front of me. As we continued, we ended up in a sewer-looking room, which was filled with smoke and green lights which gave the effect of walking in water. Horrifyingly enough, it seemed under all this smoke there was an animatronic crocodile which scared some more people in our group.

We continued getting scared as we went from room to room until we ended up in the medical room, where we had to squeeze through a tight space as we watched an absolutely brutal scene in front of us caused by one of the prisoners becoming mad doctors after taking the prison over with pieces of prisoner everywhere in the room from the experiments the prisoners conducte after seeing this I quickly rushed out with the rest of the group.

Walking through the house, we ended up in a room with mirrors the coated the walls, which used disorienting flashing lights and mirrors that simply gave us our own reflection, leading into this circus room, with random shapes and colors with terrifying clowns that after a little research on the characters had committed mass murder across the country and horrifyingly it had one of the clowns jump from the wall toward the visitors in front of me, causing them to scream out of fear.

After the clown room, I walked up some stairs and onto a bus.I made my way through this bus with bodies hanging from the ceiling. There also was what seemed to be a man sitting on a chair, watching us as we walked into the next room, which contained a single bridge spanning about 50 feet and handles that connected to the bridge as I walked through with the entire room spinning causing me to stumble and be disoriented. After exiting it, I made it to the final stretch, which had flashing lights and bodies hanging from the ceiling. After that room, I had exited the haunted house, having to hang out for a bit as it was an odd, dream-like experience caused by the constant flashing lights and loud noises that had left me feeling dizzy more than scared.

But overall it is a great experience with the best room being the clown room to get your adrenaline pumping and with the sewers being the room with the weakest scares but if you want to get your October scares in this should be a good experience when you visit this haunted house.