24 horror film quiz questions for a Halloween round

A horror round is one of the easiest ways to make a quiz feel like it belongs to the season. It also splits a room in a useful way: the people who've seen everything get their moment, and everyone else has absorbed enough through posters, parodies and Halloween costumes to stay in the game.

These 24 questions run from films almost everyone could name to the details that separate genuine horror fans from people who've just seen the famous bits. They work as a Halloween round or any time you want a themed block that gets a reaction.

The ones everyone knows

1Which 1960 Alfred Hitchcock film features a motel run by Norman Bates and a notorious scene in a shower?

Answer:Psycho(click to reveal)

2In The Shining, what is the name of the isolated Colorado hotel where the Torrance family spend the winter?

Answer:The Overlook Hotel(click to reveal)

3Which author wrote the novel that film was based on?

Answer:Stephen King. He has been openly critical of Stanley Kubrick's adaptation for decades, mostly over its treatment of the main character.(click to reveal)

4Which 1975 Steven Spielberg film about a great white shark is widely credited with inventing the summer blockbuster?

Answer:Jaws(click to reveal)

5The mechanical shark used in that film was so unreliable that Spielberg had to shoot around it. What nickname did the crew give it?

Answer:Bruce, after Spielberg's lawyer.(click to reveal)

6In the Friday the 13th series, what item of sports equipment does Jason Voorhees wear as a mask?

Answer:A hockey mask. He doesn't wear it in the first two films, picking it up partway through the third.(click to reveal)

7Which 1984 Wes Craven film introduced a burned killer with a bladed glove who attacks his victims in their dreams?

Answer:A Nightmare on Elm Street(click to reveal)

8Which actor, then unknown, made his film debut in that film as the boyfriend Glen?

Answer:Johnny Depp(click to reveal)

9In the 1996 film Scream, what name is given to the masked killer, taken from the costume's hooded white face?

Answer:Ghostface(click to reveal)

10Which 1973 film about the possession of a twelve-year-old girl became the first horror film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture?

Answer:The Exorcist(click to reveal)

Monsters and their makers

11Which author published Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus in 1818, having started it as part of a ghost story competition?

Answer:Mary Shelley(click to reveal)

12Which Irish author wrote Dracula, published in 1897?

Answer:Bram Stoker(click to reveal)

13The 1922 German silent film Nosferatu was an unauthorised adaptation of that novel. What happened as a result of the lawsuit brought by the author's widow?

Answer:The court ordered all copies destroyed. A few prints survived, which is the only reason the film still exists.(click to reveal)

14In Alien, what is the name of the commercial towing ship whose crew investigate a distress signal?

Answer:The Nostromo(click to reveal)

15Which actor played Ellen Ripley across the Alien films?

Answer:Sigourney Weaver(click to reveal)

16In the It films and Stephen King's novel, what is the name of the Maine town terrorised by a shape-shifting entity?

Answer:Derry(click to reveal)

17What form does that entity most often take?

Answer:A clown (Pennywise the Dancing Clown)(click to reveal)

The harder half

18The mask worn by Michael Myers in John Carpenter's Halloween was a cheap shop-bought mask, modified by the production. Which actor's face was it originally moulded from?

Answer:William Shatner. It was a Captain Kirk mask, widened and painted white with the eye holes cut larger.(click to reveal)

19Which 1991 film became only the third in history to win the five biggest Academy Awards: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay?

Answer:The Silence of the Lambs(click to reveal)

20Which 1968 George Romero film, shot in black and white on a tiny budget, essentially created the modern zombie film?

Answer:Night of the Living Dead(click to reveal)

21Which 2017 directorial debut, a horror film about a young Black man meeting his white girlfriend's family, won its director the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay?

Answer:Get Out, written and directed by Jordan Peele.(click to reveal)

22Which 1999 film, made for a very small budget and marketed with a campaign suggesting its footage was real, popularised found-footage horror?

Answer:The Blair Witch Project(click to reveal)

23Which 2018 film, Ari Aster's first feature, follows the Graham family after the death of a secretive grandmother?

Answer:Hereditary(click to reveal)

24Which 2002 Danny Boyle film about a virus called Rage helped revive the zombie genre by making the infected run rather than shamble?

Answer:28 Days Later(click to reveal)

Running a horror round without losing half the room

Horror is the genre where a badly judged round does the most damage. Plenty of people genuinely don't watch it, and a round built entirely from obscure slashers leaves those teams with nothing.

The fix is to lean on cultural reach rather than viewing figures. A question about the hockey mask or the clown works because people know the image whether or not they've seen a single frame of the film. Save the questions about directors and debut performances for the back half, once the easier ones have kept everyone involved.

Be a little careful with the gore. A quiz in a pub is a public setting, and a detailed description of a famous death scene lands differently read aloud to a room than it does on screen. You can write a strong horror round without any of that, and all 24 questions above manage it.

If you want something gentler for the same season, our Halloween quiz questions cover the history and traditions rather than the films. For a broader film round, try the film quiz questions set, and the quiz creator will handle the slides when you're ready to build it.