The Best Halloween Trivia Questions to Trick-or-Treat Your Brain

You're never too old to trick-or-treat. While your neighbors may not be as generous with the candy bowl when you're pushing 30, there are still plenty of ways to get your spooky season fix without getting chased off someone's porch.

For some, October is all about collecting fun-size candy bars. For the rest of us, it's about eating that candy while diving into Halloween trivia and the weird history behind its many monsters and traditions. From Celtic fire festivals to slasher movie secrets and Hollywood's infamous Silly String ban, there's a whole lot more to October 31 than just costumes and candy corn.

Whether you're putting together a pub quiz for your Halloween party or just looking to stump your coworkers on Slack, we've got you covered. Here are 85 of the best Halloween trivia questions—from turnip jack-o'-lanterns to candy corn lore—to trick and treat your brain.

Halloween History

1. What was the ancient Celtic fall festival that was a precursor to Halloween?

Answer: Samhain.

2. What does the word "Halloween" mean?

Answer: All Hallows' Eve (or Evening).

3. When was Halloween first widely celebrated in the U.S.?

Answer: The 1840s.

4. Where was the first city-wide celebration of Halloween in the United States?

Answer: Anoka, Minnesota.

5. What ancient Roman festival honoring the goddess of fruit and trees contributed to bobbing for apples?

Answer: The festival of Pomona.

6. What Mexican holiday celebrated around the same time as Halloween honors deceased loved ones?

Answer: Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).

7. What year was the first recorded use of the phrase "trick or treat"?

Answer: 1927 (in Alberta, Canada).

8. What medieval English tradition inspired trick-or-treating?

Answer: Souling.

9. What was collected door-to-door during the medieval tradition of "souling"?

Answer: Soul cakes.

10. When did trick-or-treating become widely popular in the United States?

Answer: The 1930s.

11. How did World War II affect trick-or-treating in America?

Answer: Sugar rationing temporarily halted widespread candy distribution.

12. What year was Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF founded?

Answer: 1950.

Halloween Traditions

13. What vegetable was carved into jack-o'-lanterns before pumpkins became popular?

Answer: Turnips.

14. What two colors are traditionally associated with Halloween?

Answer: Black and orange.

15. What was the original purpose of bobbing for apples on Halloween?

Answer: Fortune-telling to predict future marriage.

16. What is the largest Halloween parade in the United States?

Answer: The Village Halloween Parade in New York City.

17. What trick-or-treating requirement makes Beggars' Night in Des Moines, Iowa, unique?

Answer: Kids must tell a joke or perform a trick to earn candy.

18. What prankster tradition gave the night before Halloween the nickname "Cabbage Night"?

Answer: Throwing stinky, rotten cabbage at houses or doors.

19. What product is officially banned in Hollywood on Halloween night?

Answer: Silly String.

20. In what state is it illegal to dress up as a priest or nun for Halloween?

Answer: Alabama.

21. What city unofficially renamed itself "Halloween" for the month of October in 2022?

Answer: Conway, South Carolina.

22. What sweet, fruit-and-tea bread containing hidden trinkets is traditionally baked in Ireland on Halloween?

Answer: Barmbrack.

23. According to folklore, what will happen if you wear your clothes inside out and walk backward on Halloween?

Answer: You will see a witch at midnight.

24. What do traditional superstitions suggest sprinkling on your doorstep to ward off evil spirits?

Answer: Salt.

25. What does seeing a spider on Halloween signify according to folklore?

Answer: A deceased loved one is watching over you.

26. Why did young women walk down stairs backward while looking in mirrors on Halloween?

Answer: To see a reflection of their future husband.

27. What did Scottish women hang near a fire on Halloween to see their future husbands?

Answer: Wet sheets.

28. What ghost did Winston Churchill famously claim to see in the White House?

Answer: Abraham Lincoln.

29. Where is the world's largest collection of haunted dolls located?

Answer: Island of the Dolls (Isla de las Muñecas) in Mexico.

Halloween Candy

30. What is America's favorite Halloween candy?

Answer: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

31. What was the original name for candy corn?

Answer: Chicken Feed.

32. How many pounds of candy corn are produced every year?

Answer: 35 million pounds.

33. What three colors, from base to tip, make up a piece of candy corn?

Answer: Yellow, orange, and white.

34. Which candy was accidentally air-dropped to American soldiers during the Korean War?

Answer: Tootsie Rolls.

35. What was the first mass-produced, individually wrapped penny candy in America?

Answer: The Tootsie Roll.

36. How many colors of M&Ms are in a regular bag?

Answer: Six.

37. How are the "mystery flavors" of Dum Dums lollipops created?

Answer: By combining the leftover ends of two different flavor batches.

38. What were the first "fun-size" candy bars introduced to the market?

Answer: Snickers and Milky Way.

39. What U.S. state produces the most candy overall?

Answer: California.

Halloween Movies & TV

40. Which movie does the line “Do you like scary movies?” come from?

Answer: Scream.

41. How is Laurie Strode related to killer Michael Myers in the 2018 film Halloween?

Answer: They are not related.

42. What cheap item was spray-painted white to create Michael Myers' mask in the original 1978 Halloween?

Answer: A $2 William Shatner mask.

43. What was the working title for the original 1978 Halloween script?

Answer: The Babysitter Murders.

44. What brings the three Sanderson sisters back from the dead in Hocus Pocus?

Answer: The Black Flame Candle.

45. What was the original working title for Hocus Pocus?

Answer: Halloween House.

46. What street address did The Addams Family call home?

Answer: 0001 Cemetery Lane.

47. What address did the Munster family live at in The Munsters?

Answer: 1313 Mockingbird Lane.

48. What 1960 Hitchcock classic was the first American film to feature a toilet on screen?

Answer: Psycho.

49. What real-life serial killer inspired Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs?

Answer: Ed Gein.

50. What was the highest-grossing horror film of all time?

Answer: It (2017).

51. What was the first horror movie nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards?

Answer: The Exorcist.

52. In It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, who does Linus mistake for the Great Pumpkin?

Answer: Snoopy.

53. Who choreographed the iconic music video for Michael Jackson's "Thriller"?

Answer: Michael Peters.

54. How many times must you say "Beetlejuice" to summon him?

Answer: Three times.

55. Where do the Ghostbusters find their first ghost in the 1984 movie?

Answer: The New York Public Library.

56. What town served as the filming location for Casper (1995)?

Answer: Camden, Maine.

57. What inspired Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street?

Answer: News articles about refugees who died mysteriously in their sleep during severe nightmares.

58. Who was Wes Craven's first choice to play Freddy Krueger?

Answer: David Warner.

59. Which real-life haunted house inspired The Amityville Horror?

Answer: The Lutz family home in Amityville, New York.

60. Which Paranormal Activity film was the most commercially successful?

Answer: Paranormal Activity 3.

61. What classic movie monster was designed after the shape of the Oscar statuette?

Answer: The Creature from the Black Lagoon.

62. What horror media franchise is the most commercially successful of all time?

Answer: Godzilla.

63. What is the name of the cursed summer camp in Friday the 13th?

Answer: Camp Crystal Lake.

Halloween Literature & Monsters

64. Who wrote the 1818 classic horror novel Frankenstein?

Answer: Mary Shelley.

65. Where did the character of the Headless Horseman originate?

Answer: "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving.

66. What was the name of the Headless Horseman's horse in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow?

Answer: Daredevil.

67. What was Bram Stoker's original name for Count Dracula?

Answer: Count Wampyr.

68. What author created the '90s children's horror book series Goosebumps?

Answer: R.L. Stine.

69. What was the first Stephen King novel adapted into a feature film?

Answer: Carrie.

70. What wood is traditionally used to make a witch's broomstick?

Answer: Birch or hazelwood.

71. What is the name of the Scottish spirit that preys on travelers at night?

Answer: The Banshee.

72. What is Hong Kong’s Festival of Hungry Ghosts called?

Answer: Yue Lan.

73. Where was real-life Ichabod Crane from?

Answer: Staten Island, New York.

74. What is the traditional name for a gathering of witches?

Answer: A coven.

75. What is a lycanthrope?

Answer: A werewolf.

Halloween Science

76. How many bones are in the average adult human skeleton?

Answer: 206.

77. What is the only mammal capable of true flight?

Answer: The bat.

78. Is a pumpkin classified as a fruit or a vegetable?

Answer: A fruit.

79. Which U.S. state produces the highest volume of pumpkins annually?

Answer: Illinois.

80. What country holds the record for growing the heaviest pumpkin ever recorded?

Answer: United Kingdom.

81. What is the world record time for the fastest pumpkin carving?

Answer: 16.47 seconds.

82. What is the most popular Halloween costume for pets?

Answer: A pumpkin.

83. What phobia describes an extreme fear of Halloween?

Answer: Samhainophobia.

84. How often does a full moon fall on Halloween night?

Answer: Roughly once every 19 years.

85. Which Arizona town is named after a graveyard fixture?

Answer: Tombstone.

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