Today I’m so excited because we are doing the Unmasking the Horror Lights-On haunted house tour at Halloween Horror Nights (HHN).
I’m going to show you everything that I’ve learned and give you a few pro tips, plus why you should come out to HHN this year.
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What is the Halloween Horror Nights Unmasking the Horror Tour?
This HHN Lights-On Tour is a behind-the-scenes up close and personal tour where you can see all of the haunted houses offered by Universal Orlando Resort in a way that you wouldn’t be able to during the nighttime event (as you would probably be screaming your head off).
Where Does the Tour Start?
Before your Unmasking the Horror Tour starts, you will meet in the former Blue Man Group Soundstage, which is in Soundstage 18.
Once you get there, you will wait for all of your group to show up before you get started.
I was on a solo trip, so I waited for the rest of the people to come in my group where we would all met our hostess, Kelly, who was absolutely amazing!
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What’s Included in the HHN Unmasking the Horror Tour?
On my experience we were able to get these lanyards for free before our tour.
Halloween Horror Nights Lights-On Tour: 3-House Tour versus 6-House Tour
Before we get into the house tour experience, I want to give you the difference between the 3-House Tour and the 6-House Tour.
Something to note for both of them is that you do not get to pick what houses you will get to see on your visit. They are predetermined by the Universal Orlando Team Members.
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HHN Unmasking the Horror 3-House Tour Breakdown
The 3-House Tour lasts about three hours and starts at $79.99. On this HHN tour you get to explore the following houses:
2024 HHN Unmasking the Horror 3-House Tour Options
- The Museum: Deadly Exhibits
- Slaughter Sinema 2
- Triplets of Terror
2023 HHN Unmasking the Horror 3-House Tour Options
- The Last of Us
- Dr. Oddfellow’s Twisted Origins
- The Darkest Deal
2022 HHN Unmasking the Horror 3-House Tour Options
- Halloween
- Fiesta de Chupacabras
- Spirits of the Coven
2021 HHN Unmasking the Horror 3-House Tour Options
- Universal Monsters: The Bride of Frankenstein Lives
- Revenge of the Tooth Fairy
- Case Files Unearth: Legendary Truth
HHN Unmasking the Horror 6-Hour Tour Breakdown
The 6-House Tour last about six hours and starts at $129.99 with lunch included in the price. On this tour you will get to explore:
2024 HHN Unmasking the Horror 6-House Tour Options
- Goblin’s Feast
- Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
- Insidious: The Further
- Major Sweets Candy Factory
- Monstruos: The Monsters of Latin America
- Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines
2023 HHN Unmasking the Horror 6-House Tour Options
- Blood Moon Offerings
- Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count
- Dueling Dragons: Choose Thy Fate
- Stranger Things
- Yeti: Campground Kills
- Universal Monters Unmasked
2022 HHN Unmasking the Horror 6-House Tour Options
- Universal Monsters: Legends Collide
- Blumhouse: Freaky & The Black Phone
- Bugs: Eaten Alive
- Descendants of Destruction
- Dead Man’s Pier: Winter’s Wake
- Hellblock Horror
2021 HHN Unmasking the Horror 6-House Tour Options
- Welcome to Scary: Horror in the Heartland
- Puppet Theater: Captive Audience
- Wicked Growth: Realm of the Pumpkin
- The Haunting of Hill House
- Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- HHN Icons: Captured
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What to Know Before Your Halloween Horror Nights Lights-On Tour
One thing you should note about both tours is that they do not include your Halloween Horror Nights ticket admission, nor do they include your admission to any of the Universal Orlando Resort theme parks.
So, once you are done with that tour, your host will escort you outside of the park.
If you’re staying at the parks, all you have to do is show the host your Universal Orlando ticket, and they’ll escort you back into the park.
Unmasking the Horror Tour Photo Policy
Before we got started our HHN Lights-On Tour, we were told that we were not allowed to take photos in certain areas.
We were not allowed to take ANY videography AT ALL and whatever photos we did take, they would tell us when it was okay to do so.
So, unfortunately you won’t get to see all of the houses in their completeness on this article, just the select rooms that they allowed us to take photos of.
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Halloween Horror Nights LIGHTS ON Tour: Unmasking the Horror 3-House Tour 2021 (HHN 30)
Now let’s talk about the good stuff, the HHN 2021 houses. The first one up is the Universal Monsters: Bride of Frankenstein Lives.
1. Universal Monsters: Bride of Frankenstein Lives.
You enter a tower ruin where Frankenstein’s monster pulled the lever to bring down the walls on him and his bride.
The bride of Frankenstein does everything she can to bring him back to life by any means necessary.
So, you’ll see her going through a lot of measures like messing with vampires to make sure she can bring him back to life.
This is the material that you see looking like embers at nighttime.
During the HHN event, they’re all lit up all around the castle and were created by the Universal Orlando Design Team.
Right here is Dracula’s ring. Feel free to watch the full video here on YouTube.
Something you should note is that this house is taking place over years.
So, you’ll see in the beginning that it’s really bright when the incident happened with Frankenstein’s monster and gets a bit darker and more menacing as the house goes on.
However, as she’s (The Bride of Frankenstein) getting all of his appendages together and draining the Brides of Dracula, this is all happening over decades, not just in one month or a couple of weeks or a couple of days.
This is Larry Talbot’s cane from the Wolfman, a little HHN Easter Egg for you.
That’s me getting a selfie with Frankenstein’s monster.
You can also see the window below which is reused from the Gothic HHN house from a previous Halloween Horror Nights event.
This is one of the final scenes in the Universal Monsters: Bride of Frankenstein Lives house where Frankenstein’s monster comes to life!
You can see all of the surviving Brides of Dracula surrounding this area.
More Photos from the Universal Monsters: Bride of Frankenstein Lives Lights On Tour
Watch: New to Halloween Horror Nights? Don’t Go Without Knowing These 15 Tips!
2. HHN Icons: Captured (BONUS)
Now the HHN Icons: Captured was not a part of my tour, but because it was right next door to the Revenge of the Tooth Fairy maze, we were able to get a photo of the outside facade, which I was so happy about!
You can see the word ICONS at the top of the facade, and you can also see the different totems of the HHN Icons throughout.
It was just an incredible entrance filled with lots of details and I really loved this.
You can get a closer look of the HHN Icons in the Halloween Horror Nights Tribute Store at Universal Studios Florida.
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3. Revenge of the Tooth Fairy
Now we are in Soundstage 24 to check out the Revenge of the Tooth Fairy house, which is where all the children must give up their baby teeth to these goblin-like fairies.
The Halloween Horror Nights team came up with their own little fears from childhood to dream up this kind of storyline.
They used elements from Mardi Gras to help them create the Westhorne Manor.
When you go through the first room, which is the little boy’s room, you will see the same bed that they used in the Exorcist HHN house (I was not allowed to take photos inside of this room).
Also, there were building blocks on the floor, in his room, which were from the Poltergeist’s house. Unfortunately, I could not videotape or get photos of that room either.
This is a painting of Charles Gray, one of the lead HHN Designers.
You’ll notice this decay on the walls as you go through the house, which represents tooth decay. And the further along you get into the house, the more you will see this decay.
Look at this is the poor Butler of the Manor.
When you’re in the library, you’ll notice that there’s a painting of a woman who was previously seen in the Ghost Town HHN House from year 26.
We are now in the kitchen where the servants would ring these kitchen bells to let the family know that dinner was ready.
A fun thing to know is that each bell has one of the HHN Design Team Members names on there.
We are now in the servants’ quarter, and you will still see that the tooth decay is getting really, really intense in the house.
This is Mr. Westhorne’s pocket watch that appears to be in the servant’s quarter letting you know that he was cheating on the Mrs.
You can see the jaws of the fairy victims inside these walls right here as we head towards the final scene of the house.
Upon exiting the house, you can see that we are on page number 130, representing the 30th anniversary of Halloween Horror Nights.
More Photos from the Revenge of the Tooth Fairy Lights On Tour
4. Case Files Unearthed: Legendary Truth
As we made our way over to the final house, we were able to see a reference to the next house with the Private Investigator office of Boris Shuster.
This is one of those fun little Easter Egg’s at Universal Studios that I love finding. Boris is going to play a main role in this next house.
We also noticed the Kitty Kat Club which will be playing a big role in the Case Files Unearthed: Legendary Truth house. So, I was super excited at this point!
As you enter this house, you’ll notice this date, October 25th, 1991 at 6:00 PM. That is the first day and time that Universal Halloween Horror Nights opened as Fright Nights.
We were then met with a new character named Tim Foil, which is the play on “tinfoil hat,” because he’s supposed to be some type of conspiracist who finds Boris Shuster’s information.
During this HHN maze, Tim Foil tries to go through everything as he’s wanting to figure out what is all this stuff that he’s found really about. He wants to put the pieces together.
So, with him doing that, we’re going to go through the whole story of Boris Shuster, his private investigations, and his books.
What did he come up with? What were the stories that he created?
There are a lot of Easter Eggs in this house, so be on the lookout if you’re a Halloween Horror Nights Legendary Truth fan.
You’re going to find each of these book covers in many sections of this house. So definitely pay attention.
Tim Foils tries to get all the information together along with all the totems to do something crazy in the end…
Below we officially entered into Boar’s Shuster’s life to flesh out his background and his story.
You can see the reference to the Kitty Kat Club here, and there’s a Finnegan’s (Universal Studios restaurant) reference which is pretty cool.
Now we’re going into the mannequin area, which was extremely creepy.
And as you can see, there is one of the totems right there, but you wouldn’t probably see it at nighttime.
Hipster Power Tip: Whenever you’re in a room with a whole bunch of scareactors where you can’t tell which one is real, just look at the feet. Most of the time, a real person’s feet will be moving. Because you know, you can’t really just stand still for too long.
Here’s another totem that we found in the Legendary Truth HHN house.
Up next is the Kitty Kat Club which is what you saw earlier when we were walking on that pathway within the park at Universal Studios.
Check out Boris Shuster standing right there on the side of the Kitty Kat Club entrance at HHN 30.
Here’s another totem inside the Kitty Kat Club.
Now this room is pretty unique because this is where a live actress actually stands here and sings while you’re going through the maze. It’s pretty cool.
This is the first time Universal has done something like this during Halloween Horror Nights.
The live actor also has a lot of little triggers that she presses to make some unique actions happen as you go through the maze, which you can see up close right here.
This is Thunder, the Pomeranian, which has been in a house at HHN for almost every year. I thought that was pretty cool hidden Halloween Horror Nights gem.
As we came to end of this beautiful house, you can see it says New Jersey, October 31st, 1991 at 11:59 PM.
That is when the last day of the very first Halloween Horror Nights, AKA Fright Nights, took place and ended.
More Photos from the Case Files Unearthed: Legendary Truth Lights On Tour
My Final Thoughts on the HHN Unmasking the Horror Tour
This was my first time doing the Unmasking the Horror Tour at Universal and I had an absolute blast!
I do recommend this tour for you if you’re a bit afraid of doing the actual event. This way you’ll know what to expect and where the scareactors will pop up at.
It’s also really good to know a bit about each house as it makes the full nighttime experience that much better!
So be sure to stick around and check out all of the HHN designs across the theme park and don’t forget to check out the HHN 30 Tribute Store.
It is AMAZING and it’s a must, even if you’re not into Halloween Horror Nights.
If you like this article, then you’ll love these:
- Which is better, Halloween Horror Nights or Howl-O-Scream?
- First Timer Solo Tips for Universal Orlando Resort
- Halloween Horror Nights History – 1991
- My Halloween Horror Nights Solo Trip Report
- Halloween Horror Nights History – 1992
- Universal Studios One-Day Itinerary
- Islands of Adventure One-Day Itinerary
- History of Halloween Horror Nights
Until next time, Happy Park Hopping Hipsters!
About the Author
My name is Nikky. I’m a wife, a mother, a pharmacist turned theme park blogger, USA Today 10Best Contributor, and a writer who loves ALL things amusement park related!
Traveling alone to the parks has changed my life and I want to show how you can create your own solo theme park memories.
Connect with me on Instagram!
(Original Article Date: November 5, 2014/Updated August 27, 2024)