Statesville amps up haunted prison in 22nd year

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1 Statesville amps up haunted prison in 22nd year Three actors from the Statesville Haunted Prison pose for a photo Friday, Oct. 13 before they start work in the haunted house. Photos by Jessie Molloy/22nd Century Media Actors for the haunted houses get makeup applied before going to work.

2 Jessie Molloy, Freelance Reporter 4:33 pm CDT October 16, 2017 Share + Statesville Haunted Prison and City of the Dead are once again hosting one of the biggest scares in the suburbs, and they're owned and housed by the same people who bring you family-friendly fun at Siegel s Cottonwood Farm. Located down the street from the old Joliet Prison and the Stateville Correctional Center, the Siegel s Statesville Prison, located at Weber Road in Crest Hill, is 15,000 square feet of terror spread across forty rooms and includes the performances of over 150, mostly local, actors. My birthday is October 30, so fall is my favorite season and I ve always loved Halloween, said Paul Siegel, the third-generation farm owner. We tried doing a haunted hayride the first year, but it rained so much that year that we decided we had to take our haunted attraction inside. I had some unutilized space in an old grain storage building and we converted that into the haunted prison, which we thought was a good theme since we are right across the street from the old prison. The attraction is now in its 22nd year and is still going strong. We are the longest running haunted house in the same location, run by the same group in the country that I know of, said Kaity Siegel, Paul s daughter and the events manager for Cottonwood. We have people come from all over. We get a lot of visitors from Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin who come in to see it the thing is, we are not just looking to scare people, we re looking to create a whole experience in entertainment for our visitors. To that end, the Siegels spend months throughout the year working with their partner management company, Zombie Army Productions, to come up with ways to refresh and improve the haunted houses. Since opening Statesville at its original size of 3,000 square feet, the family has extended the building and created City of the Dead, a second, separate 7,000 square foot haunted house where evil goes to die. Every year we redo thirty to forty percent of the haunted houses, Kaity said. This year we redid the yard show the guests see as they re waiting to get into the actual prison and we totally gutted the maniac ward and redid it. It was a pretty popular room, so we kept the theme but we changed most of the effects. She also noted that the expansion to the yard has made the whole attraction bigger than ever. We have a lot of people who never make it inside, they spend a few minutes in the yard and say that s it! she said.

3 While the Siegels take pride in how intensely frightening their attraction has become since it was started (Kaity gleefully reports that they have had grown men run out screaming and wet their pants) they make sure to scare responsibly. No one can touch you, Paul says. After you go through the opening scene we explain the rules to everybody, the actors can t touch you, and you can t touch them. I know there are some places in the country where you can pay extra and sign a waiver so anything goes, but we don t do that here. We want people to be safe and so far we ve not had any problems. Additionally, actors are discouraged from chasing guests who are too scared or trying to retreat. There are also strict rules about who is allowed in the haunted house. No children under 10 are allowed on the farm property during the haunted house hours of operation, and all children under 16 are required to be accompanied by an adult, with at least one adult per group of up to five minors. When we first started we thought we might do it to be a family friendly haunted house, but then we realized that there were a lot of adults and teenagers looking for something to do during Halloween and decided to make it a more extreme, adult haunted experience, Kaity said. Guests wishing to brave the haunts are escorted through the prison gates into a scene of horrific chaos, the prisoners have rioted, the guards have been taken captive and the audience must get through the penitentiary and escape the carnage before they too become victims of the escaped inmates. It s difficult to keep the show fresh year after year when you adhere to the same theme all the time, explained Paul. With it being a prison, we can t fall back on the standard monsters and slasher movie characters that a lot of haunted houses use quite regularly, but we like our theme because what s scarier than actually being in prison? All our rooms are scenes that would be in a real prison, but with a very demented twist. Going behind the scenes In City of the Dead, guests are taken underground into a series of caves and crypts where the human actors and animatronics are joined by a cast of other creepy crawly entertainers including over a dozen live snakes, rats, and hissing cockroaches. The animals are a really great fourth element of entertainment along with the actors, and the props, and the sets, said Colin Langenderfer, animal coordinator. Langenderfer owns Cross Town Exotics in Mokena and provides the animal actors for Zombie Army Productions. This is my sixth year working with the company and it s a great experience, he said. I think it s a unique way to connect with the audience bringing the live animals in.

4 Two Burmese pythons, which go by the names Phil and Mr. Cuddles, are the stars of the show. They have made multiple TV appearances on shows such as Chicago Fire and Empire and are the only entertainers in the haunted houses guests are allowed to make contact with. We keep them in a quieter room of the haunted house without strobes or anything so they don t get stressed and the audience is allowed to pet them everywhere but their heads, because nobody likes a stranger touching their face, Langenderfer explained. The actors that handle them know how to work with snakes and will protect them if someone gets out of hand, but it adds an extra level of fun to the experience, because how often do you get to come face to face with a live python. Between shows, the animals are kept in tanks in the staging area, a barn equipped with a fully functional makeup and costume studio. It takes us about two and a half hours to get everybody ready to go, said Alex Wooday, makeup artist. We have about 170 people to get ready, so we move them through pretty fast. First they get into costume and then we call them up based on what they need done. If they need silicone or prosthetic makeup on, like to have peeling zombie skin or something, they get that done first then I do the base work, where we airbrush them and put the dark circles under their eyes and stuff for masks if they re wearing them. Then they go to get their detail work done like veins and scars. After they re all done they go downstairs to warm up right before they go out and we [the makeup artists] do makeup on each other and run down and join them at the last minute. The only group of workers that does not join in the haunting once doors open for the evening is the costume staff, who are on constant standby to do last minute repairs and wardrobe change outs. We have over two hundred costumes, but there are way more than that when they mix the pieces up, said Cori Cooley, costume manager. We have a lot of repairs to do pretty constantly Statesville Haunted Prison and City of the Dead Weber Road, Crest Hill, IL Hours 7-11 p.m. Thursday-Sunday; Oct. 25, 30, 31 Admission $30 per person

5 For more information Phone: (877) Web: statesvillehauntedprison.com