Waiting area

The show is housed within a recreation of the Pantages Theatre. The lobby/waiting area includes multiple displays on Universal horror films including Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Psycho, Jaws, The Thing, Bride of Chucky and An American Werewolf in London. The lobby also includes displays on the Universal Monsters, The Munsters, and Universal's Halloween Horror Nights. Since 2004, the lobby has also included prop displays and clips from recent Universal horror films such as Van Helsing (2004), King Kong (2005), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), The Wolfman (2010) and The Mummy (since 2017).

Main show

Stage for Universal Orlando's Horror Make-Up Show

The show is mostly scripted, with some parts improvised between the actors and/or the audience. Sometimes, the actors may improvise quips about celebrities or about a single or all members of the audience.

It is hosted by Alex Ross (played by a male or female actor) and Universal Studios' creature creator and visual effects artist Mark James (also played by a male or female actor, in which case, if the latter, the character is instead named Marty James). While Ross is looking around the stage for James, the latter enters the theater with a large knife dug into their heart and briefly interacts with audience members before "dying", and revealing to the audience that it is a fake.

A montage of clips from gory scenes of Universal horror films is then shown on screens on both sides of the stage, showcasing the many films that Universal Pictures has released, becoming the creator and pioneer of horror as a film genre. Once the montage has ended, Ross and James pick out a volunteer from the audience to explain and demonstrate how a bloody limb cut is achieved by using a fake knife. Unbeknownst to the volunteer and the audience, the knife is a prop and the blood is fake, giving the appearance that it is cutting into the skin. Afterward, a short clip montage about Lon Chaney is shown on the screens, with James describing that Chaney kept his prosthetic makeup secrets to himself until he died. The montage goes on to describe Universal's make-up artist Jack Pierce, who was responsible for creating the designs for Universal's Classic Monsters including Dracula, Frankenstein's monster, The Wolf Man, The Mummy and Bride of Frankenstein.

After this, Ross peeks behind the curtain, and a car alarm goes off. James turns it off and questions Alex on the reasons for peeking on their secret project, which the latter usually blames on a child from the audience. Afterward, a clip of the creation of the make-up design for the title character in 1941's The Wolf Man is shown on the screens. While a clip from An American Werewolf in London is shown, James adds that it was Rick Baker who further expanded and fully developed the art of prosthetic makeup in many blockbuster films, for which he was recognized as the inaugural recipient of the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling in 1981; James also lists Ve Neill as another renowned makeup artist to follow suit. A final clip is shown from the 2010 remake of The Wolf Man, in which Benicio del Toro transforms into the title character, while James presents on-stage how practical effects achieved the initial stages of the transformation before computer-generated imagery was utilized to fully complete it.

For the finale, James reveals their secret project: a motion capture vest which controls the movements of an "animatronic" werewolf named Eddie. Ross and James call on their volunteer from earlier to come back onstage to help demonstrate this effect (before taking a picture altogether). However, after the volunteer returns to their seat, Eddie comes alive and chases James backstage, before the latter ends the chase by seemingly killing Eddie offstage and returning to the stage bloody and bruised.

Guests leave through a hall featuring multiple posters of Universal horror films on the walls such as The Birds, Jurassic Park, and Psycho before exiting into the shared gift shop with The Bourne Stuntacular.