How to Run a Halloween Quiz That Works for Adults and Kids

Halloween quizzes have a problem: most of them are either twenty questions about pumpkins or a horror film exam only the person who wrote it can pass. The best ones sit in between, with a bit of theatre on top.

Pitch it for the room

Before you write or pick a single question, count the under-twelves. If there are more than a couple, give them their own round and keep the rest at adult level. Mixing easy and hard questions in the same round frustrates both halves of the room.

Our free Halloween quiz does exactly this: three adult rounds and a kids’ round, thirty questions in all.

Rounds that work

• Traditions and history. Where Halloween comes from, why we carve pumpkins (it used to be turnips), and what “Hallowe’en” is short for.
• Horror films. Keep it broad: Psycho, The Shining, Ghostbusters and Hocus Pocus reach far more people than cult slashers.
• Monsters and myths. Dracula, Frankenstein, werewolves and banshees, with the odd literary twist.
• Spooky sounds. Theme tunes and Halloween songs. Play them if you can.
• A picture round. Zoomed-in close-ups of Halloween things work brilliantly: a pumpkin’s grin, a bat’s wing, a cauldron’s rim.

Add a little theatre

Dim the lights for the horror round. Read the questions in your most unsettling voice. Give a prize for best costume and another for best team name. None of this takes long, and it’s what people remember.

Keep it moving

Four or five rounds of ten is plenty for a party. Mark each round as you go, announce the scores, and keep a tie-breaker ready: “In what year was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein first published?” (1818). Closest wins.

The full version

The free Halloween quiz is questions and answers only. The full Halloween Quiz is sixty brand-new questions, mostly medium to hard, over six rounds, with a zoomed-in picture round, team answer sheets and tie-breakers. Download it, dim the lights and read it out.