Horror Movie Trivia: 50 Questions From Universal Monsters to 80s Slashers

While Bela Lugosi was playing Dracula on Universal’s sets by day in 1930, a second cast moved in after dark. Using the same castle, the same crypts and the same script, a Spanish-language company led by director George Melford and star Carlos Villarías shot an entirely separate Drácula through the night. Stories like that are why horror movie trivia is so much fun: the genre was built on cheap tricks, borrowed sets and ideas that were only supposed to last one weekend.

These fifty questions run in rough chronological order, from the Universal monster cycle of the 1930s to the slasher boom of the early 80s. Answers follow in bold, and the ones that tend to cause arguments get a short note.

Horror movie trivia, round one: the Universal monsters

1. Who directed Dracula (1931)? Tod Browning
2. Who played the Count in that film? Bela Lugosi
3. Who directed Frankenstein (1931) and Bride of Frankenstein (1935)? James Whale
4. What is Dr. Frankenstein’s first name in the 1931 film? Henry (not Victor, as in the novel)
5. Which makeup artist designed Karloff’s flat-headed monster? Jack Pierce
6. Which actress played both Mary Shelley and the Bride in Bride of Frankenstein? Elsa Lanchester
7. Which actor is heard far more than seen in The Invisible Man (1933)? Claude Rains
8. Boris Karloff’s mummy is an ancient priest named what? Imhotep
9. Who played Larry Talbot in The Wolf Man (1941)? Lon Chaney Jr.
10. Who wrote the “even a man who is pure in heart” verse recited in The Wolf Man? Screenwriter Curt Siodmak
11. Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) was originally shown in what format? 3-D

Question 10 catches people out because the verse sounds like genuine old folklore. Siodmak invented it for the script and later said so plainly in interviews. It has been treated as an ancient rhyme ever since, which is a fair tribute to how well he wrote it.

Round two: monster rallies and the Hammer years

12. Which 1943 film was the first to put two Universal monsters on screen together? Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
13. Which comedy team met Frankenstein’s monster, Dracula and the Wolf Man in 1948? Abbott and Costello
14. Who returned to play Dracula in that 1948 comedy? Bela Lugosi
15. Who played the Count in Hammer’s Dracula (1958), released in the US as Horror of Dracula? Christopher Lee
16. Who played his nemesis, Van Helsing? Peter Cushing

This round charts how the monsters aged. By the 1940s Universal was putting its creatures together in crowded sequels to squeeze more life out of them, and by 1948 they were straight men for Abbott and Costello. That comedy is better than its reputation suggests, partly because the studio treated the monsters seriously while the comedians clowned around them. A decade later, Britain’s Hammer Films revived the same characters in color, with more blood and more open menace than Universal would ever have allowed, and Lee and Cushing became the defining horror double act of their era.

Round three: shadows and showmen

17. Who produced Cat People (1942) for RKO? Val Lewton
18. Who directed it? Jacques Tourneur
19. The “bus” scare in Cat People gave its name to what technique? The jump scare, often called the “Lewton bus”
20. The Thing (1982) remakes which 1951 film? The Thing from Another World
21. Both versions come from which John W. Campbell novella? “Who Goes There?”

Round four: Hitchcock and the 1960s

22. Who wrote the novel Psycho? Robert Bloch
23. What is the name of the woman killed in the shower? Marion Crane
24. Who played Norman Bates? Anthony Perkins
25. Which composer wrote the screeching strings? Bernard Herrmann
26. What was used for blood in the shower scene? Chocolate syrup
27. What word for the walking dead is never used in Night of the Living Dead (1968)? Zombie (they are called “ghouls”)
28. Who played Ben, the film’s hero? Duane Jones
29. Whose novel was Rosemary’s Baby (1968) adapted from? Ira Levin

Night of the Living Dead is now regarded as the first modern zombie film, which makes question 27 a lovely trap. George A. Romero thought of his creatures as something new, quite separate from the Caribbean-style zombies of earlier films like White Zombie (1932), and the script calls them ghouls. The word “zombie” only attached itself to them once fans and critics started using it.

Round five: the 1970s

30. Who directed The Exorcist (1973)? William Friedkin
31. Who wrote both the novel and the Oscar-winning screenplay? William Peter Blatty
32. Which Oscar-winning actress provided most of the demon’s voice? Mercedes McCambridge
33. Who directed The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)? Tobe Hooper
34. What is the masked killer in that film called? Leatherface
35. Which 1976 film was the first adaptation of a Stephen King novel? Carrie
36. In Halloween (1978), in which town does Michael Myers return to kill? Haddonfield, Illinois
37. Which actress made her film debut as Laurie Strode? Jamie Lee Curtis
38. Dr. Loomis is named after a character in which film starring Curtis’s mother? Psycho (Sam Loomis)
39. What was the white Halloween mask before the crew altered it? A Captain Kirk mask
40. What is the name of the ship in Alien (1979)? The Nostromo
41. What is the ship’s cat called? Jones

The Halloween questions make a neat chain if you read them in order. Jamie Lee Curtis is the daughter of Janet Leigh, who died in Psycho’s shower, and John Carpenter borrowed the Loomis name from that film as a deliberate nod. The mask, meanwhile, was a cheap store-bought Captain Kirk face that production designer Tommy Lee Wallace painted, stripped of its sideburns and reshaped around the eyes. On a small budget, everything was improvised.

Round six: the 80s slashers and beyond

42. Who is the killer in the original Friday the 13th (1980)? Mrs. Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother
43. In which film does Jason first wear his hockey mask? Friday the 13th Part III (1982)
44. What is the name of the summer camp? Camp Crystal Lake
45. Which room number was changed from 217 in the novel to 237 in Kubrick’s The Shining? Room 237
46. Who directed A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)? Wes Craven
47. Which future star made his film debut as Nancy’s boyfriend Glen? Johnny Depp
48. In Poltergeist (1982), what does Carol Anne announce in front of the television? “They’re here.”
49. For which film did Rick Baker win the first Academy Award for Best Makeup? An American Werewolf in London (1981)
50. Which line from The Fly (1986) became the film’s tagline? “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

Question 42 is the best trick in this whole quiz, and it still works on people who have seen the sequels many times. Jason only appears in the first film as a boy in a lake, in a final jolt. The actual killer is his mother, played by Betsy Palmer, avenging the son she believes the counselors let drown. Jason takes over the franchise in Part 2 with a sack over his head, and only picks up the famous hockey mask in Part III, which was itself released in 3-D.

Question 49 is a nice footnote for makeup fans. The Academy did not have a regular competitive makeup category until the awards for films of 1981, and Baker’s transformation sequence, which shows a man turning into a wolf in full light, was the first winner. He went on to win the category several more times.

How to run it on a dark night

Turn the lights down, but not so far that people cannot write. I like to read the Universal round by candlelight and then switch the lamps back on for the slashers, partly for atmosphere and partly so nobody misreads their own answer sheet. Give one point per correct answer and a bonus point for anyone who can name the year as well as the film. Teams who know their Hammer from their Universal tend to pull ahead in rounds two and three, so save the slasher round for last if you want a close finish.

The rounds are designed to get harder and then ease off, so a mixed crowd stays in the game. If you want a picture round, describe a famous poster without naming the film and see who gets it first. Our post on old horror movie posters is a good source of ideas, and if your players like the deep cuts, the underrated horror movies list has plenty of titles for a bonus round.