Free Halloween Pub Quiz: 10 Questions and Answers

Halloween is one of the best quiz nights of the year. People dress up, the pub is busier than usual, and everyone is up for a daft themed round.

Here is one, free. Ten Halloween questions with the answers underneath, pitched for a normal pub crowd rather than horror film buffs. It's up a few weeks early so you have time to plan your night around it.

How to use this round

• Read each question twice. Once for the room, once for the table dressed as Ghostbusters who weren't listening.
• Print the questions, not the answers. The answers are further down for marking.
• One point per question. Ten questions, ten points.
• Consider a fancy dress bonus. An extra point for the best-dressed team is a cheap way to get people to make an effort.

The difficulty is mixed on purpose: a few everybody gets, a middle chunk that separates the teams, and a couple for the strong tables.

The questions

1. How many witches appear in Shakespeare's Macbeth?
2. What is the fear of spiders called?
3. Before pumpkins, which vegetable was traditionally carved into lanterns in Ireland and Scotland?
4. Who wrote the novel Frankenstein?
5. In the 1978 horror film Halloween, what is the name of the masked killer?
6. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, the Count comes ashore in which English seaside town?
7. In Ghostbusters (1984), what is the name of the giant marshmallow man that attacks New York?
8. Which famous escapologist died on Halloween in 1926?
9. Which actor provides the spoken voiceover on Michael Jackson's Thriller?
10. Halloween has its roots in which Celtic festival marking the end of the harvest?

The answers

1. Three. The "weird sisters", and half the room will do the "double, double, toil and trouble" line.
2. Arachnophobia.
3. Turnips. Accept swedes. The tradition moved to pumpkins in America, where they were easier to find and easier to carve.
4. Mary Shelley. Published in 1818, and famously started during a ghost story contest with Lord Byron.
5. Michael Myers. Not to be confused with Mike Myers of Austin Powers fame, though someone will write that down.
6. Whitby. The town now holds a goth weekend twice a year.
7. The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Accept "Stay Puft".
8. Harry Houdini.
9. Vincent Price.
10. Samhain. Pronounced "sow-in". Accept any reasonable spelling.

Which ones will separate the teams

From how questions like these tend to land:

• Nearly everyone gets: Macbeth, arachnophobia and Michael Myers.
• The middle of the table: Frankenstein, Whitby, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and turnips.
• Only the strong teams: Houdini, Vincent Price and Samhain.

If your crowd is younger, the Thriller question might be harder than you'd expect. Swap it for "Which 1990s TV show featured Buffy Summers?" (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) if you need an easier one.

Making a proper night of it

A Halloween quiz is a chance to go a bit further than a normal week:

• Theme every round. A horror film picture round, a spooky music round, a round of "true or false" urban legends.
• Give a prize for the best costume. It gets people talking about the night for weeks beforehand.
• Decorate a little. A few pumpkins on the bar and some fake cobwebs cost almost nothing.
• Advertise it early. Three weeks out, like any other special night. Our restart guide covers where to spread the word.

For a themed picture round, 44 pub quiz picture round ideas has a few that adapt well to Halloween, and our guide to building a music round works just as well with a spooky playlist.

Where this round came from

This is one round of ten. A full PubQuizzes pack is five rounds plus a one-question shot round: three standard rounds, a music round with a Spotify playlist behind a QR code, and a picture round, all with answer sheets ready to print.

If you want to see a whole one, there's a free sample quiz here. And if you're new to hosting, start with how to run a pub quiz night.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use this Halloween quiz at my own quiz night?

Yes. Print it, read it out, use it however you like.

What are good Halloween quiz categories?

Horror films, classic monsters, Halloween traditions, spooky songs and famous ghost stories all work well as themed rounds.

How do I make a Halloween quiz night fun?

Theme the rounds, give a prize for the best costume and keep the questions mixed so every team scores something.

Have a brilliant Halloween. If there's a theme you want a free round for next, let us know.

Mitch and Harry