Welcome to Dead House
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40 free Welcome to Dead House trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Welcome to Dead House is where Goosebumps began. Published in July 1992, R. L. Stine's story of a brother and sister whose new home comes with some very odd neighbours is grittier than most of the books that followed, and plenty of readers remember it as the one that really scared them. This quiz covers the whole story: the move, the uneasy early weeks, the night in the cemetery and the ending that refuses to tie things up. It also goes behind the pages, with questions on the famous cover, the TV adaptation, the film that was never made and the merchandise that followed. It is written for anyone who grew up on Goosebumps, for parents and teachers reading the book with a class, and for quiz hosts who need a spooky round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you guess wrong.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01R. L. Stine, who launched Goosebumps with Welcome to Dead House, is nicknamed after which adult horror novelist?
Stephen King
Stephen King is the comparison, though Stine started out far from horror, writing joke books for children under the name Jovial Bob Stine.
Q 02Which horror director wrote a full, never-filmed 1990s movie screenplay of Welcome to Dead House?
George A. Romero
George A. Romero recast the townspeople as sympathetic victims who long to rest in peace, and invented a town boss to be the true villain. The script was shelved.
Q 03In Welcome to Dead House, why do the townspeople kill the pet that Amanda and Josh arrive with?
Dogs can sense them
Dogs can sense them, Ray admits: animals know the living dead on sight, so the pet had to be silenced before it gave the whole town away.
Q 04What is the family name of Amanda and Josh, the siblings at the heart of Welcome to Dead House?
Benson
Benson is the family's name. Twelve-year-old Amanda tells the story, while her brother Josh is a year younger and a good deal more stubborn.
Q 05In Welcome to Dead House, a letter says Amanda's father has inherited the house from which relative?
A great-uncle
A great-uncle he had never heard of supposedly left it to him. The relative never existed: the letter was bait to bring a living household to town.
Q 06In Welcome to Dead House, what do Amanda and Josh find in the cemetery that exposes the local children?
Their gravestones
Their gravestones tell the truth: every child who welcomed the newcomers is buried in the cemetery, and Ray admits that the stone carved for him is his.
Q 07In Welcome to Dead House, what must the townspeople take from a living person once a year to carry on?
Fresh blood
Fresh blood from a newly killed victim buys the town another twelve months, which is why outsiders keep being lured to the same house.
Q 08At the climax of Welcome to Dead House, what do Amanda and Josh push over to flood the townspeople with sunlight?
A tree
A tree had kept the gathering place in permanent shadow. Once it comes down, daylight pours in and the townspeople crumble where they stand.
Q 09As Amanda and her parents drive away at the end of Welcome to Dead House, what does she see pulling up outside?
The next occupants
The next occupants are arriving, led by a man who looks just like Mr. Dawes. The trap has been reset before the survivors are even out of the driveway.
Q 10Which gloomy town, a four-hour drive from their old home, do Amanda and Josh move to in Welcome to Dead House?
Dark Falls
Dark Falls is so thickly overgrown that its roads are dim at midday, and Amanda notices that nobody is ever out in the yards or on the pavements.
Q 11In Welcome to Dead House, what job does friendly Mr. Dawes hold in the family's new town?
Real estate agent
Real estate agent is his cover: Mr. Dawes hands the same house to one unsuspecting household after another, and his own grave shows he died years ago.
Q 12What is the name of the white terrier that Amanda and Josh bring along in Welcome to Dead House?
Petey
Petey is usually well behaved, but he barks and bolts from the day the family arrives, and twice runs off to the cemetery as if he knows what lies there.
Q 13In Welcome to Dead House, what does Josh shine in Ray's face to rescue Amanda in the cemetery?
A flashlight
Q 21Which American publisher released Welcome to Dead House in July 1992?
Scholastic
Scholastic launched the whole Goosebumps series with it, and by 1996 this title by itself had passed a million copies sold.
Q 22Which Goosebumps book about a botanist father was released in the same month as Welcome to Dead House?
Stay Out of the Basement
Stay Out of the Basement reached shops alongside it in July 1992, with a cover by a different artist, a rarity among the early books.
Q 23Before Welcome to Dead House, R. L. Stine was best known for which teen horror series he began in 1989?
Fear Street
A flashlight does it: caught in the halogen beam, Ray's flesh melts away until only a heap of bones is left on the ground.
Q 14In Welcome to Dead House, the yellow gas that doomed the whole town escaped from a factory making what?
Plastics
Plastics were the town's trade until the accident. The poisonous fog drifted over every home and left the residents undead and unable to bear bright light.
Q 15In Welcome to Dead House, the two upstairs bay windows of the old house remind Amanda of what?
A pair of eyes
A pair of eyes, staring down at the road below, is how the windows strike her on the very first visit, long before anything goes wrong.
Q 16In Welcome to Dead House, which best friend visits Amanda on her last night in the old neighbourhood?
Kathy
Kathy comforts her by pointing out that the new town is only a few hours away. The TV version dropped the scene and renamed the friend Jennifer.
Q 17In Welcome to Dead House, where beside the cemetery do the townspeople gather to feed on Amanda's parents?
An amphitheater
An amphitheater at the cemetery's edge is the town's sunless meeting place, and the whole population turns out there for the yearly feast.
Q 18In Welcome to Dead House, how does the undead girl Karen treat her destroyers as the sunlight finishes her?
Thanks them
Karen thanks them, grateful to be released: a hint that the children of the town never wanted their endless half-life.
Q 19In Welcome to Dead House, what odd claim do both Ray and Karen make about Amanda's new home?
They once lived there
They once lived there, and so did every child in town: each household was lured to the same address. Amanda makes the claim herself as she leaves.
Q 20Which artist painted the original cover of Welcome to Dead House and nearly a hundred more Goosebumps covers?
Tim Jacobus
Tim Jacobus won the job with this painting: the publisher tried two artists on the opening books and kept him for his saturated colours.
Fear Street made Stine a teen bestseller, and its success led a book packager to ask him for scary stories aimed at younger children.
Q 24The TV version of Welcome to Dead House adds which lucky object that keeps the townspeople at bay?
A wreath
A wreath, antique and ugly, hangs over the fireplace in the TV version. The neighbours claim it draws the dead to the house, when in truth it repels them.
Q 25The TV version of Welcome to Dead House was shot in which Canadian city?
Toronto
Toronto doubled for the gloomy town, and a decommissioned power station in the city's Port Lands supplied the grim industrial skyline.
Q 26Which US network premiered the TV version of Welcome to Dead House as a one-hour prime-time special in 1997?
Fox
Fox gave the story an evening slot instead of its usual children's block, and R. L. Stine hosted the hour himself.
Q 27A sequel to Welcome to Dead House was announced for which spin-off line that never reached shops?
Goosebumps Gold
Goosebumps Gold was due in 2000 with a festive return to the house, and the cover art was finished. The line was cancelled when Stine and his publisher fell out.
Q 28Which fast-food chain gave away a 3-D puzzle of the house from Welcome to Dead House in 1997?
Taco Bell
Taco Bell handed out the puzzle in 1997, the same year the story reached television as a one-hour special.
Q 29Welcome to Dead House returned in 2010 with brand-new cover art under which reissue banner?
Classic Goosebumps
Classic Goosebumps reissued it as the line's thirteenth title, with a Brandon Dorman painting and a few lines of the prose quietly smoothed out.
Q 30In Welcome to Dead House, what is the first name of Mr. Dawes, the only one in his family to bear it?
Compton
Compton is a name he cheerfully admits he cannot explain: he tells the newcomers he has no idea where it came from.