As
mentioned in my Halloween Horror Night’s 22 (HHN) post, I was lucky enough to
attend the event on 3 different nights, and went on two different tours. Much
of the focus of this post will be on the “Unmasking the Horror Tour, but I will
conclude it with a little about the “Arcane Insights Tour.” As far as the
“Unmasking the Horror Tour,” it’s basically a guided tour through three houses
during the daytime. It’s a great tour to go on if you are interested in knowing
about the inner workings of a haunted house attraction.
Unlike last year, this time they only
let us take pictures on the tour. So what I’ve done is put together all the
pictures in one video so that you can easily see all the pictures. After each
video, I tried to describe some of the pictures, and what they tried to do in
the house. You may need to go back and watch the video a second time to see
exactly what I’m talking about. It was a shame they didn’t let us record the
tour because in two of the houses they had the effects going on while we were
inside. It would’ve made for some cool videos. However, I did go ahead and add
my own cheap sound effects!
Every year they seem to have a house
that is meant to be more fun than scary, and the Penn and Teller house was that
house. Apparently Penn and Teller have wanted to do a house for HHN for a long
time, and this was finally the year. They had some input on the things you see
in the house, like the doves. Also, you may have noticed there are a lot of
pictures with them on it. That is all stuff from their shows that they supplied
HHN with. And to top it off, they not only visited the house before HHN began,
but they visited the house on one of the nights HHN was going on (too bad it
wasn’t on a night that I was there).
The above video starts off with a look
outside of the house, including a shot of a guy standing over a can that was
actually taken at night. Not long after that are some shots of the room that
they actually took the promo pictures for advertising. Moving on to the
“Honeymoon Suite,” you see some good examples of what I meant about having
stuff from their shows in the house. You can see the small bed with a mirror
above it. There was a French maid in this room who was supposed to scare you.
You can also see the doves I mentioned,
which had glowing red eyes that you could see at night with the 3D glasses on
(yes this was also a 3D house). Speaking of red, the guide told us they use red
in a lot of the houses because people seem to be attracted to red. There are a
couple of pictures of a notebook, which isn’t that interesting right? Well, I
included them only because it’s actually the script for Mortal Kombat. You can
also see some X-Mas lights, which looked pretty cool with the 3D glasses on.
What would Las Vegas be without some
slot machines? While you were busy looking at them and trying to push the
buttons, there were scaractors dressed as Roman soldiers roaming the room.
Another popular Vegas theme is the wedding chapel. You see a few dead visitors
sitting in the chairs. This chapel actually featured an Elvis look a like as a
distraction. After that, you can see the buffet that I mention in my HHN post.
There was a lot to look at as the people pushing buttons on the other side
abused you. Not only are people attracted to the color red, but also like
pushing buttons, which is why they set this room up.
This was one of the two houses that had
the effects going on while we were touring it. They seem to always have a house
that looks like the typical haunted house on the outside, which you can see in
the first few pictures. Then you see the old lady, who floated back and forth
over the stairs. At night it was harder to see the wire, as they hide the
effect pretty well. After that there seemed to be a normal walkway, but when
the lights went out it was actually a spinning tunnel with ghostly faces.
Moving along, you might recognize the
doll on the wall. This was one of the houses that used a lot of the props from
last year. Then you can see some pictures that were on the wall that changed
depending on the angle that you look at them. I always have fun looking at
those, but am careful of people lurking in the shadows.
After that comes one of my favorite
tricks, as you see three chairs and two ladies sitting in them. As you might
have guessed, a scaractor sits in the empty chair waiting for the perfect to
time to jump up and scare guests. Following those pictures, it’s hard to make
out but there is a guy sitting in the bathtub. He’s the distraction because
there was a scaractor standing behind the tub waiting for you. Also, there is a
sink to the right of that with a fake mirror. Ever once in a while, it would
slide down, and a scaractor would pop out.
Sometimes they go for the camouflage
scare, which is one of the scares going on in pictures of the room with lots of
plants and windows. There was a scaractor placed in that room dressed as a big
bush. Of course there are other scaractors in the room distracting you just in
time for the bush to surprise you. Not long after those pictures, you might
notice two quick pictures of some clothing. Well, the clothing belongs to
Leatherface and Freddy, whose sweater might be easier for you to make out in
the picture. They were definitely hard to see at night.
Speaking of hard to see, one of the
following rooms was a hallway of books. There were some books missing so that
scaractors could stick their hands out at you. Those missing books just might
be the books that were floating above you. You can see them in the pictures,
but they were a little harder to see at night.
The final room in the house was pretty
cool. As you can see, there was a projection of a woman screaming. The
projection is actually on top of a bed that was turned sideways on the wall.
Where do creepy people sometimes hide in movies… under the bed. As you turn the
corner there was a scaractor under the bed scaring guests on their way out of
the house. It worked well as long as the line was moving.
This haunted house (the second one with the effects on) was set in a
cathedral that was being restored, as you can tell from the outside of the
house. If you previously visited Universal Studio’s and their Ghostbusters
attraction, you will notice the gargoyles in the front of the house are the
ones from the attraction. The bigger gargoyles are ones that Universal used to
have at the entrance to the park along time ago. Just as you are about to enter
the house, you see a statue to the far right. To your immediate left is another
statue, which you don’t see in the pictures because it’s a scaractor statue. In
the picture, you will see the device the scaractor used to set off some effects
when they scared guests.
As you can see there were a lot of
things to look at as you made your way through. As I mentioned, they like to
place things for you to touch, grab, pull, etc. Well, in the room with the
giant bell there were ropes for you to pull on. As you did that, there were
also scaractors in the room ready for those not paying attention. After that
comes the first of several rooms with awesome gargoyles. You see a series of
candles, which were especially made so that anyone who tried to light one
couldn’t! Above you was a gargoyle strapped to the harness you see in the
picture. It would stand still and then fly across the room with some sound
effects playing.
After a series of pictures of statues,
you will see some pictures that look like I was taking pictures of some pieces
of wood. It was hard to get a picture of, but on the inside of the wood and
downward was where the church was. There was also a reflection so that you
could also look upwards in the room and see it as well. And what was all that
for? Well, when you walked forward looking in that direction, there was a hatch
in the ceiling with a gargoyle waiting for you to pass.
Moving along you will see a big black
curtain with some small shiny objects on it. It’s supposed to simulate the
night sky. Why… for the gargoyle that flew back and forth. You might be able to
see the bar and harness that it was hooked up to. To your right you will see
what looks like a small house, where a scaractor was sometimes hiding.
Then onto the final and best scare in
the house, and of the event. There was room that was pretty dark, and didn’t
look like a lot was going on. You could see the opening you can see in the
picture, but there didn’t appear to be anything there. That was until a gargoyle
sprung at you stopping at the wall. You can see the place where the gargoyle
grabbed onto to the wall to hang on, and pop out at you. The first time
experiencing this was the best, even though we were tipped off of this
happening as you can see. They did a really good job of hiding the gargoyle
until it was flying towards you. It was funny because every time we went into
the house after seeing it the first time, we would stop there and yell for the
gargoyle to come out. It was that cool.
Now for a few thoughts about the
“Arcane Insights Tour.” While I’ve done the regular R.I.P. Tour over the past
few years, this was definitely an upgrade. The difference between the two tours
is that the Arcane tour not only has a guide taking your group around, but your
group is also accompanied by one of the designers of HHN. I had my doubts about
how this would turn out, but it was well worth it.
T.J. was the designer that accompanied
our tour, and he was fantastic. He’s been working there for over 16 years so he
had plenty of stories to share. Before going into the houses, both T.J. and our
guide, David, would give us the background on the house, and things to be on
the look out for. After walking through the house, we could ask them about
things we saw, and maybe didn’t see. At one point, we stopped touring the park
and had a Q & A session, where we all got to ask him questions. It was nice
not only hearing about this year’s event, but he also referred to many of the
events in the past. We also got to hear about how they plan the houses, the
challenges they face putting the houses together, how the marketing was done,
and a little about possible future plans for HHN. I would say this tour is
definitely for people who are really interested in HHN both past and present,
and enjoy learning about the inner works of these kinds of events.
So I hope this has given you a good
inside look at Halloween Horror Night’s 22. This was certainly one of their
better years, and I’m glad I got to experience it on multiple levels. If you
have any questions about the event, the tours, or any of the videos and
pictures I shared, please feel free to ask me about it. In case you missed it,
you can read my post on HHN 22 here, and see more videos here.
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