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45 free Scary Halloween trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
50 free Scary Halloween trivia questions with answers. Are you ready to test your knowledge of all things spooky and terrifying? Our Scary Halloween trivia quiz will challenge you with questions about classic horror films, haunted legends, and creepy Halloween traditions. Prove you're a true Halloween expert and see how well you know the darker side of the season!
30 of 45 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which ancient Celtic festival is considered one of the origins of modern Halloween traditions?
Samhain
Many Halloween traditions are believed to have originated from Samhain, an ancient Celtic festival that marked the end of summer and the harvest, and was associated with the boundary between the living and the dead.
Q 02What vegetable was originally used to carve jack-o'-lanterns in Ireland?
Turnip
The name is tied to the legend of Stingy Jack, doomed to roam the Earth with only a hollowed turnip to light his way.
Q 03Which author is credited with writing the novel 'Dracula'?
Bram Stoker
Bram Stoker, an Irish author, published Dracula in 1897, telling the story entirely through letters, diary entries and newspaper clippings.
Q 04The word "zombie" is believed to come from the traditions of which place?
Haiti
In Haitian tradition the reanimation is the work of a bokor, a sorcerer, rather than a virus.
Q 05In spiritualism, what substance is believed to be exuded by mediums during séances?
Ectoplasm
Ectoplasm, in spiritualism, is a substance or spiritual energy that psychical researchers claimed was 'exteriorized' by physical mediums during séances. Scientists have debunked these claims as hoaxes.
Q 06Halloween is the vigil of which Christian feast day?
All Saints' Day
Halloween is the eve of All Saints' Day, 1 November; All Souls' Day follows on 2 November, completing the three days of Allhallowtide.
Q 07Which term names an object, often inscribed with symbols, believed to bring good luck or ward off evil?
Talisman
A talisman is credited with magical or protective powers, or with bringing its owner good fortune; the Greek evil-eye charm is one that guards against malevolent gazes.
Q 08What kind of magic is traditionally used for evil or selfish ends?
Black magic
Black magic is magic worked for evil or selfish ends; the medieval Church lumped it with witchcraft, which the 1486 treatise Malleus Maleficarum set out to prosecute.
Q 09Which Irish Halloween fruitcake is baked with a ring, a coin and other charms hidden inside?
Barmbrack
Barmbrack is the Irish Halloween fruit loaf baked with charms; the ring foretells marriage within the year, while the pea means no wedding is coming.
Q 10Which early silent film is considered one of the most influential vampire movies, featuring Count Orlok?
Nosferatu (1922)
Nosferatu (1922), F. W. Murnau's unauthorized Dracula adaptation, renamed the count and cast Max Schreck as Orlok, who brings plague to the town of Wisborg.
Q 11During the 1692–93 witch trials in colonial Massachusetts, how many convicted people were hanged?
19
Fourteen women and five men were hanged, and one more man was pressed to death for refusing to enter a plea.
Q 12Which studio's monster series brought Dracula, Frankenstein and the Phantom to the screen in the 1920s and 30s?
Universal Pictures
The 1931 Dracula was such a hit that the studio rushed Frankenstein into production the same year.
Q 13In English and Celtic folklore, a black cat crossing your path is traditionally a sign of what?
Good luck
In Britain and Ireland a black cat crossing your path is good luck; sailors' wives kept black cats for the same reason, while Americans read the cat as an ill omen.
Q 21Which horror writer created Pennywise the Dancing Clown and the fictional town of Derry, Maine?
Stephen King
Stephen King set It, his 1986 novel, in Derry, one of the fictional Maine towns that recur across his horror fiction.
Q 22What is a ghost that makes itself known through loud noises and moving or broken objects commonly called?
Poltergeist
Poltergeist is German for 'rumbling ghost' or 'noisy spirit', a name for physical disturbances rather than apparitions.
Q 23Which accused man in the 1692 Massachusetts witch trials died under torture for refusing to enter a plea?
Giles Corey
Giles Corey, about 81, was pressed under stones for two days in September 1692 after refusing to plead; his wife Martha was hanged days later.
Q 14Which horror subgenre presents recorded media supposedly discovered by characters in the story?
Found footage
Found footage films such as The Blair Witch Project (1999) present the story as recovered recordings; Cannibal Holocaust used the same device in 1980.
Q 15Baking and sharing which food door to door at Allhallowtide is a suggested origin of trick-or-treating?
Soul cakes
Soul cakes were shared 'for all christened souls'; Shakespeare mentions 'souling' in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and children going door to door in costume were 'guising'.
Q 16Which fictional creature is usually depicted as vulnerable to silver and resistant to almost everything else?
Werewolf
Werewolves are the monster said to be killed only by silver; in Curt Siodmak's 1941 Universal screenplay the werewolf dies from blows of a silver-headed cane.
Q 17Which killer, who attacks teenagers in their dreams wearing a striped sweater and bladed glove, stalks A Nightmare on Elm Street?
Freddy Krueger
Freddy Krueger was played by Robert Englund in the original, which also gave Johnny Depp his film debut.
Q 18Count Dracula's surname is thought to derive from the patronymic of which ruler?
Vlad the Impaler
Vlad the Impaler (Vlad III) ruled Wallachia in three reigns; his father Vlad II Dracul gave him the patronymic Drăculea, 'son of Dracul'.
Q 19Which 'Master of Suspense' made The Birds in 1963 and turned up in cameos in most of his own films?
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock's films earned 46 Academy Award nominations, yet he never won Best Director despite five nominations.
Q 20What year was George A. Romero's influential zombie film 'Night of the Living Dead' released?
1968
Night of the Living Dead premiered in Pittsburgh on 1 October 1968, shot in black and white by George A. Romero for roughly $114,000.
Q 24What iconic mask does the character Jason Voorhees wear in the 'Friday the 13th' film series?
Hockey mask
Jason Voorhees first donned the hockey mask in Friday the 13th Part III (1982); it has identified him in every film since.
Q 25Which film was the first horror movie nominated for the Best Picture Oscar?
The Exorcist
The Exorcist (1973) earned ten Oscar nominations including Best Picture; William Friedkin directed it from William Peter Blatty's adaptation of his own 1971 novel.
Q 26Which mythical creature is a harbinger of death, its mournful wailing said to foretell a family member's passing?
Banshee
The banshee of Irish folklore keens for the dying and was said to summon the death coach with her cry, or travel alongside it.
Q 27Frankenstein grew out of an 1816 ghost-story contest proposed by which poet during a rainy Swiss summer?
Lord Byron
Lord Byron's challenge to Mary, Percy Shelley and John Polidori produced a novel by an 18-year-old, published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818.
Q 28Which character wears a white mask and wields a large knife in the "Halloween" film series?
Michael Myers
Michael Myers's white mask in the 1978 Halloween was a William Shatner Captain Kirk mask, painted white and bought for under two dollars.
Q 29What is the name of the red-haired killer doll, possessed by a serial killer's spirit, in the Child's Play franchise?
Chucky
Chucky is so central that the Child's Play franchise, created by Don Mancini, is colloquially known by his name.
Q 30Which figure from Washington Irving's 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow' pursues Ichabod Crane?
The Headless Horseman
The Headless Horseman, the ghost of a Hessian soldier in Washington Irving's 1820 tale, chases Ichabod Crane; Ireland's dullahan is a similar figure.