Halloween quiz questions and answers for adults

In short

• Here are 50 Halloween quiz questions with answers, in five rounds of ten: history, UK folklore, horror films, music and a fun round.
• Every answer has been checked, and questions with disputed answers have been left out.
• The five rounds drop straight onto a five-category Quiz Show board, or onto every guest’s phone.
• If you play music clips rather than reading the questions, check the venue’s music licence.
• Finish on a tie-breaker with a number for an answer, so the night can’t end in a draw.

Halloween quiz questions for adults need more bite than the kids’ trivia that fills most search results. The ones below are written for a work social, a pub or a charity night: some history, a lot of horror films, some music and a fun round for the people who only came for the sweets.

They also suit a British office, where Halloween splits the room. In a 2024 poll only 28% of Britons said they would celebrate it, and far more preferred Bonfire Night. A quiz gets round that. Nobody has to dress up or pretend to love it, and the people who do love it get to show off.

What makes good Halloween quiz questions for adults?

Good Halloween quiz questions for adults have one clear answer, reward a sensible guess and stay on the fun side of spooky. A question only horror buffs can answer kills a table. One that everyone half-knows starts an argument, and an argument is exactly what you want.

• Mix the obvious with the surprising. “Who wrote Dracula?” sits well next to a question about what the Halloween mask used to be.
• Leave out gore and anything you wouldn’t want read aloud in front of the managing director.
• Skip contested folklore. A lot of Halloween’s ancient history is tradition rather than record, so every question here has an answer you can check.
• Read every question aloud before the night. If you stumble over it, so will the room.

Of the Britons who do celebrate, 41% watch a scary film, so a horror film round is an easy choice.

Halloween history quiz questions

Where Halloween came from, and a few odd dates in its calendar.

1. Which Celtic festival is usually given as the root of Halloween? Answer: Samhain.
2. “Halloween” is a shortened form of which phrase? Answer: All Hallows’ Eve, the evening before All Saints’ Day.
3. Which Christian feast day falls on 1 November? Answer: All Saints’ Day (also called All Hallows).
4. Before pumpkins, which vegetable was carved into lanterns in Ireland and Scotland? Answer: the turnip (accept swede).
5. Irish and Scottish emigrants to America swapped that vegetable for what? Answer: the pumpkin.
6. What is the Scottish name for dressing up and going door to door at Halloween? Answer: guising, which Historic Environment Scotland calls the original form of trick or treating.
7. Which escapologist died in Detroit on Halloween 1926? Answer: Harry Houdini.
8. In which Massachusetts town were the witch trials of 1692 held? Answer: Salem.
9. Which country celebrates Día de Muertos, the Day of the Dead, on 1 and 2 November? Answer: Mexico.
10. Samhain marked the end of the harvest and the start of which season? Answer: winter.

What are some Halloween quiz questions and answers with a UK twist?

The best Halloween quiz questions and answers for a UK room come from closer to home: Scottish poetry, Lancashire witches and a Yorkshire shipwreck. They catch out anyone who thinks Halloween is an American import.

1. Which Scottish poet wrote a poem called “Halloween” in 1785? Answer: Robert Burns. It was first published) in 1786, in the Kilmarnock Edition.
2. In Scots, what is a “tumshie”? Answer: a turnip, traditionally carved into a lantern.
3. In Scotland, what are you doing if you are “dookin” for apples? Answer: apple bobbing, trying to lift apples out of water with your teeth.
4. Ten people convicted at Lancaster Castle in 1612 are known as the witches of where? Answer: Pendle.
5. In which Yorkshire town does Count Dracula come ashore? Answer: Whitby.
6. In what form does he leap off the wrecked ship? Answer: a large dog.
7. What nationality was Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula? Answer: Irish.
8. In an Irish barmbrack, what did finding the ring in your slice predict? Answer: that you would be married within the year.
9. Which Scottish author created Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde? Answer: Robert Louis Stevenson.
10. Which failed plot does Bonfire Night on 5 November remember? Answer: the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

Halloween film quiz questions

Even people who never watch horror films know the famous lines.

1. What is the name of the masked killer in John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978)? Answer: Michael Myers.
2. That mask started life as a cheap mask of which TV character? Answer: Captain Kirk from Star Trek. The crew bought it for $1.98 and painted it white.
3. Who played Laurie Strode in the same film? Answer: Jamie Lee Curtis.
4. What is the surname of the three witch sisters in Hocus Pocus (1993)? Answer: Sanderson.
5. In The Shining (1980), which actor breaks through a door shouting “Here’s Johnny”? Answer: Jack Nicholson.
6. What is the name of the hotel in The Shining? Answer: the Overlook.
7. How many times do you have to say Beetlejuice’s name to summon him? Answer: three.
8. What is the name of the pub in Shaun of the Dead (2004)? Answer: the Winchester.
9. What is the mask worn by the killer in Scream (1996) called? Answer: Ghostface.
10. Who is the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas? Answer: Jack Skellington.

Which Halloween music quiz questions work in a live room?

The Halloween music quiz questions that work best are about songs people have danced to at a party, not deep cuts. Read them out as written, or play a few seconds of each track and ask for the title or the artist.

1. Which horror film actor performs the spoken section of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”? Answer: Vincent Price.
2. Who had a hit with “Monster Mash” in 1962? Answer: Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers.
3. Who sang the theme from Ghostbusters (1984)? Answer: Ray Parker Jr.
4. Which Coventry band took “Ghost Town” to number one in the UK in 1981? Answer: The Specials.
5. Which 1978 Kate Bush number one is sung by the ghost of Cathy? Answer: “Wuthering Heights”.
6. Which Mike Oldfield album was used on the soundtrack of The Exorcist (1973)? Answer: Tubular Bells.
7. Who sings the chorus on Rockwell’s 1984 hit “Somebody’s Watching Me”? Answer: Michael Jackson.
8. Which creatures did Warren Zevon sing about in London in 1978? Answer: werewolves.
9. Who first recorded “I Put a Spell on You”, in 1956? Answer: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.
10. Which 2008 Rihanna single shares its title with a 2007 thriller starring Shia LaBeouf? Answer: “Disturbia”.

Playing recorded music in public, quiz rounds included, usually needs TheMusicLicence. Ask the venue if it holds one before you build a playlist.

What are some fun Halloween quiz questions?

Fun Halloween quiz questions are the quick ones anybody at the table can shout out. That makes them a good warm-up if the room is quiet, or a fast finish if it isn’t.

1. Botanically speaking, is a pumpkin a fruit or a vegetable? Answer: a fruit.
2. How many legs does a spider have? Answer: eight.
3. What is the collective noun for a group of crows? Answer: a murder.
4. And for a group of witches? Answer: a coven.
5. What is the only mammal capable of true flight? Answer: the bat.
6. What is the name of the Scooby-Doo gang’s van? Answer: the Mystery Machine.
7. What is the name of the Addams Family’s butler? Answer: Lurch.
8. Who plays Wednesday Addams in the Netflix series Wednesday? Answer: Jenna Ortega.
9. In the first Harry Potter book, what gets loose in Hogwarts on Halloween? Answer: a troll.
10. Bruce Wayne is the secret identity of which superhero? Answer: Batman.

What is a good Halloween tie-breaker question?

A good tie-breaker has a number for an answer, so the closest team wins and you never finish on a draw. Try this one: how many steps climb from Whitby’s old town up to the abbey? The answer is 199.

Need a second? Ask what year Dracula was published. It came out in May 1897.

How do you turn these into a Halloween pub quiz?

To turn this list into a Halloween pub quiz, run the five rounds in an order that builds, mark between rounds and keep the tie-breaker for the very end. If the quiz sits around a meal, three rounds is plenty. This is the order I’d use:

• History first. It settles the room and every table scores.
• Films straight after the break, when people need waking up.
• UK folklore and music in the middle.
• The fun round last, because quick answers keep the noise up while you add the scores.
• Fancy dress optional, with a bonus point for the best-dressed table, so the enthusiasts get their moment and nobody else feels told off for coming in a jumper.

For a picture round, a wipeout or a joker round, there are more quiz round ideas, and a full guide to running a corporate quiz night.

How I run a Halloween quiz on my own software

A work quiz is a different crowd from a pub quiz. Plenty of people at an office social would never call themselves quizzers, and when one person on each table holds the pen, the rest drift. I run them as a show, on software I built myself, so I can switch games at the microphone without the energy dropping. Every game can be played at the front, at the tables or on every guest’s phone.

Here is how this list would play on the night:

• On a Quiz Show board. The best five questions from each round above make a category, with the easiest at the lowest values. Teams pick, buzz in and steal each other’s misses.
• On every phone. With Quiz Live, every guest answers on their own phone, scoring for being right and being quick, with a leaderboard after every question. Nobody sits out while a captain holds the pen.
• As a knockout. The Cut puts the whole room in: five typed questions a round, and the lowest scores are cut until one player is left.

I write the questions for the people in the room, so a Halloween night can carry a round about your own office as well.

If you would rather hand the whole night over, I’ll pick the games, write the rounds and host it as your quiz master. One host, the whole evening. Call me on 07596 851647 and tell me about the room.