179 Fun Facts About Halloween

Which group of settlers, hostile to old church festivals, kept Halloween out of colonial New England?

The Puritans rejected Halloween, like Christmas, as a relic of the old church calendar, while Anglican colonists in the South and Catholics in Maryland went on marking All Hallows' Eve.

The green-skinned witch of Halloween costumes was made famous by which classic film?

The Wizard of Oz gave the Wicked Witch her green skin in 1939, with copper-based make-up on Margaret Hamilton; in L. Frank Baum's book she has no green skin, only a single eye as powerful as a telescope.

Which ancient Celtic festival is most often named as a root of Halloween?

Samhain marked the end of harvest and the start of winter in Gaelic lands, a night when the boundary with the Otherworld was thought to blur so that spirits and the dead could cross over.

Which Halloween sweet was originally marketed under the name 'Chicken Feed'?

Candy corn was sold as Chicken Feed because, when it appeared in the late 1800s, corn was thought of as feed for farm animals rather than food for people.

In the 1978 horror film "Halloween," what is the name of the masked killer?

Michael Myers stabs his sister on Halloween night at the age of six and escapes from a sanitarium 15 years later; the end credits list the masked adult simply as 'The Shape'.

Real vampire bats, which feed only on blood, live in the wild in which part of the world?

Central and South America are home to all three species of vampire bat, the only bats that live on blood alone; Europe, where the vampire legend grew up, has none of them.

In It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, who gives up trick-or-treating to wait in the pumpkin patch with Linus?

Sally misses the candy and the party out of devotion to Linus, then rounds on him in fury when the only thing to rise from the patch turns out to be Snoopy.

The e'en in Hallowe'en is a contraction of 'even', meaning evening, in which language variety?

Lowland Scots shortened 'even', evening, to e'en, so All Hallows' Even shrank to Hallowe'en, which is why older spellings keep an apostrophe where the v fell out.

In a Scottish Halloween game played beside the dooking tub, what is hung on strings to be eaten hands-free?

Treacle scones, smeared with yet more treacle, hang from the ceiling on strings and must be bitten without using the hands, so every player ends up with a sticky face.

Which realm's ruler, Louis the Pious, made 1 November the date of All Saints' Day throughout his lands?

The Frankish Empire took up the feast on its emperor's order, given at the pope's request; churches in Ireland and Northumbria were already keeping 1 November by about 800 and may have set the example.

In Bram Stoker's Dracula, which conqueror does the Transylvanian Count boast of as his ancestor?

Attila the Hun's blood runs in his veins, the Count brags, tracing his Székely people to Hun warriors whom legend made the children of Scythian witches and desert demons.

Stick insects, the Phasmatodea, share the Greek root phasma with phasmophobia, the fear of what?

Ghosts: phásma is Greek for 'apparition', a fitting root for insects that vanish among twigs; some even sway from side to side, which is thought to mimic twigs stirring in a breeze.

In Hocus Pocus (1993), what does Mary Sanderson fly on after the sisters' broomsticks are stolen?

A vacuum cleaner is what Mary grabs when no broom is left, while her sister Sarah makes do with a mop: the joke is a 17th-century witch riding a modern appliance.

Which New York City parade began in the 1970s as puppeteer Ralph Lee's walk with his puppets?

The Village Halloween Parade began as Ralph Lee's walk from house to house for his own children and their friends, and grew into a march up Sixth Avenue billed as the world's largest Halloween parade.

What are Día de los Muertos home altars laid with the departed's favourite foods called?

Ofrendas, Spanish for 'offerings', carry the dead person's favourite dishes and a glass of water, set out because the souls are said to arrive thirsty after their long journey home.

In Bram Stoker's Dracula, which young English solicitor finds himself a prisoner in the Count's castle?

Jonathan Harker comes to explain the purchase of a London estate, then finds every door locked and writes in his journal, 'The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner!'

Which horror movie features a character named Ghostface?

Scream (1996), directed by Wes Craven, introduced Ghostface, the hooded killer in a wailing-ghost mask who telephones victims with horror-movie quiz questions.

Which unusual substance was traditionally poured into water for Halloween fortune-telling in Ireland?

Molten lead was poured through the ward of a door key into a bowl of cold water, and the shape it hardened into was read as an omen of what lay ahead.

Which once-common Halloween handout fell out of favour in the US after rumours of hidden pins and razor blades?

Candy apples lost their place in the treat bag to 1960s and 1970s scares about pins and blades; some hospitals even X-rayed children's hauls, though almost every report that was traced proved a hoax.

What is the name of the elegantly hatted skeleton lady who became an icon of Día de los Muertos?

La Catrina began as printmaker José Guadalupe Posada's skull in a fancy hat, mocking Mexicans who aped European fashions; Diego Rivera gave her a full figure in a 1940s mural.

What is the name of the phobia that describes an intense fear of spiders?

Arachnophobia comes from arákhnē, Greek for spider; in Ovid's telling the weaver Arachne hanged herself after a contest with the goddess Minerva, who then turned her into one.

What famous magician died on Halloween in 1926?

Harry Houdini died of peritonitis days after a student punched him in the stomach in his Montreal dressing room; whether the blows caused it is still argued.

The mask worn by the killer in the 1978 film 'Halloween' was originally cast from which actor's face?

William Shatner's face, on a Captain Kirk mask bought from a Hollywood Boulevard costume shop, became the killer's once the crew widened the eye holes and sprayed it a bluish white.

In the original 1820 tale of the Headless Horseman, what is Ichabod Crane's job?

Schoolmaster Ichabod Crane lodges a week at a time with the farmers whose children he teaches; Tim Burton's 1999 film Sleepy Hollow recast him as a New York police constable.

In Ghostbusters (1984), which towering mascot does the god Gozer turn into to trample New York?

The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man appears because Gozer tells the team to choose the form of their destroyer and one Ghostbuster cannot help picturing a beloved mascot from his childhood.

Which farm figure is a traditional Halloween costume model alongside vampires, ghosts and skeletons?

The scarecrow joined vampires, ghosts, skeletons and witches as a stock Halloween costume, a harvest-field figure that fits the festival's end-of-harvest roots.

In the horror film "A Nightmare on Elm Street," what is Freddy Krueger's signature weapon?

A bladed glove is Freddy Krueger's own handiwork: in the films' story he welded the knives to a leather glove himself before turning it on his victims.

In old Scottish Halloween custom, burning torches were carried around homes and fields in which direction?

Sunwise, or deiseal, follows the sun's course and was the lucky direction in Gaelic custom, widdershins the unlucky one; Braemar families still walked their fields that way with fir torches in the 19th century.

Which author wrote the gothic novel "Frankenstein"?

Mary Shelley began Frankenstein at 18, after Lord Byron proposed a ghost-story contest during a rainy summer at Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva.

Which sitcom starred Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha, a suburban witch who cast spells by twitching her nose?

Bewitched ran on ABC from 1964 to 1972: Samantha marries a mortal and vows to live as a typical suburban housewife, a promise her 'witch twitch' kept breaking.

In old Halloween lore, what was a young woman said to see in a mirror in a darkened room?

Her future husband was the hoped-for face, though a skull in the glass foretold her own death; the custom was common enough to be printed on Halloween greeting cards around 1900.

What is a group of witches called?

A coven was first simply a gathering, a word traced to the Latin convenire, 'to come together'; it took on witches in 1660s Scotland, where Isobel Gowdie's 1662 confession told of her own.

Which U.S. state produces the most pumpkins?

Illinois harvests nearly twice the pumpkin acreage of any other state, and almost 70 percent of it is grown for processing into pie filling and purée rather than for carving.

In the TV show "The Simpsons," what is the name of their annual Halloween special episodes?

Treehouse of Horror takes its name from the first one, in 1990, in which Bart, Lisa and Maggie swap scary stories in the family's treehouse while Homer eavesdrops.

In most modern fiction, weapons made of which metal are the werewolf's special vulnerability?

Silver is the werewolf's bane in most modern fiction; silver weapons, from bullets to the silver-headed cane that kills Larry Talbot in 1941's The Wolf Man, destroy what ordinary steel cannot.

Which Edgar Allan Poe poem has a midnight visitor that answers every question with 'Nevermore'?

The Raven made Poe famous almost overnight when it appeared in January 1845 but earned him very little; its narrator is mourning his lost love Lenore when the bird taps at his door.

During mummification, which organ did ancient Egyptian embalmers leave in place inside the body?

The heart stayed because Egyptians held it, not the brain, to be the seat of thought and feeling; the brain was drawn out through the nostrils, and the stomach and lungs were stored in jars beside the mummy.

What horror movie franchise features a doll named Chucky?

Child's Play (1988) introduced Chucky: serial killer Charles Lee Ray, shot by a detective, uses a voodoo ritual to move his soul into a Good Guy doll.

What is the traditional flower of the dead placed on Día de los Muertos altars?

Marigolds, cempasúchil from the Nahuatl for 'twenty flowers', are the flower of the dead; their bright petals and strong scent are believed to guide souls from the cemetery to the family altar.

In Dracula, which of the Count's traits is often explained as the mark of a creature with no soul?

Casting no reflection gives the Count away in the novel: his guest sees an empty shaving mirror with the vampire standing right behind him, and Dracula hurls the glass out of the window.

Which Stephen King novel features a haunted hotel called the Overlook?

The Shining grew out of a night Stephen King and his wife spent at Colorado's Stanley Hotel in 1974 as its only guests, just before it shut for the winter.

Before pumpkins took over in America, which vegetable were Irish jack-o'-lanterns usually carved from?

Turnips, hollowed and carved with demonic faces, were meant to frighten off wandering spirits; Irish immigrants to America switched to the native pumpkin they found there.

Since the 1950s, children have carried small orange boxes on Halloween to collect coins for which organisation?

UNICEF's Halloween collection began in 1950, when a Philadelphia minister's family and their neighbours gathered $17 in decorated milk cartons for children in post-war Europe.

In It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, what does Charlie Brown get at every house while trick-or-treating?

A rock is all he gets at each door; after the 1966 broadcast, viewers took pity and for a long time sent candy to the special's makers for Charlie Brown.

The 'were' in werewolf comes from an Old English word meaning what?

Man is the meaning: Old English wer was the word for a male at a time when 'man' meant any person, and it also hides in 'world', literally 'the age of man'.

Which 9th-century pope extended the 1 November feast of all saints to the whole Church?

Gregory III had only dedicated an oratory in St Peter's to the relics of all saints.

The 'hallow' in Halloween, as in All Hallows' Day, comes from an Old English word meaning what?

Holy is the sense, from Old English hālig; hallow has been used as a synonym for saint, so All Hallows' Day is simply All Saints' Day.

Which star of Wes Craven's 1996 slasher plays Casey, the victim of its opening phone-call scene?

Drew Barrymore, one of the cast's best-known names, plays Casey Becker, whose boyfriend is killed when she gets a question about Friday the 13th wrong on the phone.

Before it meant a carved lantern, 'jack-o'-lantern' was a name for which eerie natural light?

Will-o'-the-wisp, the flicker seen over bogs, was called Jack of the lantern from the 1600s, as if a man were out with a light; the name passed to carved lanterns only in the 1800s.

In the 1938 Halloween-eve radio play The War of the Worlds, the Martians first land in which US state?

New Jersey was the landing site, at the village of Grovers Mill: the script moved the invasion in the original novel from Victorian England to the listeners' own back yard.

In European witch lore, what are the small-animal spirit helpers said to serve witches called?

Familiars were said to feed on the witch's own blood, so examiners at witch trials searched suspects' bodies for the 'teat' that supposedly nursed them and counted it proof of guilt.

In 609, Pope Boniface IV re-dedicated which building in Rome to 'St Mary and all martyrs'?

The Pantheon was given to Boniface IV by the Byzantine emperor Phocas and consecrated on 13 May 609; centuries of continuous use as a church are a large part of why it survives so intact.

In Irish folklore, Stingy Jack was doomed to wander with a lantern after outwitting whom?

The Devil, tricked into promising never to claim Jack's soul, kept his word: shut out of heaven and hell alike, Jack was sent off into the dark with a single burning coal for a light.

What two colors are most traditionally associated with Halloween?

Orange and black are Halloween's traditional pair, orange being the colour of the autumn harvest; purple is sometimes counted as a third.

Hop-tu-Naa, a Halloween festival of carved lanterns and song, belongs to which island in the Irish Sea?

The Isle of Man long treated Hop-tu-Naa as the turn of the Celtic year, and singers still go round the houses with their lanterns and songs about Jinny the Witch.

Who directed 1978's 'Halloween', the slasher about a masked killer stalking teenage babysitters?

John Carpenter also co-wrote Halloween with producer Debra Hill and composed and played its score himself, finishing the music in three days.

The tri-coloured Halloween confection was invented in the 1880s by George Renninger of which firm?

George Renninger of the Wunderle Candy Company in Philadelphia created candy corn in the 1880s; the Goelitz Confectionery Company, later Jelly Belly, began mass-producing it in 1898.

Skulls in Halloween decoration echo which Latin phrase, long used for art that dwells on death?

Memento mori means 'remember you must die'; in some accounts of Roman triumphs a slave stood behind the victorious general to remind him he was mortal, and later artists made the skull its emblem.

Which enslaved woman in minister Samuel Parris's household was among the first accused in the Massachusetts witch panic of 1692?

Tituba was accused alongside Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne; unlike them she confessed to witchcraft, which lent the girls' accusations weight and widened the hunt.

Mictecacihuatl, the 'Lady of the Dead' often linked to Día de Muertos, was a goddess of which people?

The Aztecs made her queen of Mictlan, the lowest underworld, beside her husband Mictlantecuhtli; whether Día de Muertos grew from Aztec rites or from Spanish All Souls' customs is still argued by Mexican scholars.

The name Dracula, borrowed from a 15th-century Wallachian prince, originally meant what?

Son of the dragon: Vlad the Impaler's father joined the Order of the Dragon, a knightly league against the Ottomans, and was nicknamed Dracul for it, so his son became Dracula.

Which actor played the dream-stalking killer Freddy Krueger throughout the original Nightmare on Elm Street films?

Robert Englund played Freddy throughout the original series, and in Wes Craven's New Nightmare he also appears as a fictional version of himself, the actor behind the monster.

Halloween disguises in Gaelic lands may have been a way to hide from the aos sí, better known as what?

Fairies is the usual English name for the aos sí, who were thought to slip into this world at the start of winter; people left food and drink outside for them so that family and livestock would survive it.

Halloween took hold in America after a wave of Irish immigrants fled which catastrophe?

The Great Famine of the 1840s drove millions of Irish across the Atlantic, and their customs turned Halloween from a day little kept outside Maryland and the South into a national holiday.

The word 'bonfire' is thought to come from ancient festival fires that burned what?

Bones were the fuel: the word was 'bonefire' in Middle English, a fire of bones, and Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary wrongly traced it to the French bon, 'good'.

What traditional Irish fruit loaf, baked with charms inside, is eaten at Halloween?

Barmbrack hid fortune-telling charms: whoever got the ring in their slice would marry within the year, while a coin promised wealth.

Which Roman goddess of fruit is sometimes credited with Halloween's apple games?

Pomona shut every suitor out of her orchard in Ovid's telling, until the god Vertumnus got in disguised as an old woman, pleaded in vain, then won her by showing his true form.

The earliest known use of 'trick or treat' in print came in 1917 in which country?

Canada: The Sault Daily Star of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, reported in 1917 that gangs of youngsters had gone round the night before calling out 'tricks or treats'.

At which Irish hill was the Samhain fire lit from which every hearth was rekindled?

Tlachtga, the Hill of Ward in County Meath, was where the druids lit the Samhain fire; Geoffrey Keating wrote that all Ireland's hearths were quenched and rekindled from it.

Which Roman festival honouring dead ancestors may have influenced All Saints' and All Souls' days?

Parentalia centred on a commemorative meal at relatives' graves, a custom Christian Romans kept up and extended to their saints and martyrs.

Giles Corey refused to plead to 1692 Massachusetts witchcraft charges; how did he die?

Pressed under stones: peine forte et dure piled ever heavier weights on a prisoner to force a plea, and legend has Corey answering only 'More weight'.

In Scotland and Ireland, children going house-to-house in Halloween costume for treats were traditionally called what?

Guisers had to earn their treat: at each door they were expected to sing a song, tell a joke or recite a poem before being handed fruit, nuts or coins.

Which famous author wrote 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,' featuring the headless horseman?

Washington Irving sketched this tale of rural New York in a few hours at his sister's home in the British city of Birmingham, then finished it in London.

Which Irish dish of mashed potatoes and cabbage was traditionally served on All Hallows' Eve?

Colcannon, mashed potato with cabbage or kale, was the Irish All Hallows' Eve supper; charms such as a ring or coin were hidden in it and portions served at random.

A teal-painted pumpkin on a doorstep tells Halloween visitors that the home is offering what?

Non-food treats such as small toys let children with food allergies join in; the Teal Pumpkin Project began with a Tennessee support group and went national through the charity FARE in 2014.

What is the name of the traditional Halloween game involving apples floating in water?

Apple bobbing is a popular Halloween party game where participants try to retrieve apples floating in a tub of water using only their mouths.

What supernatural being is a reanimated corpse craving human flesh?

Zombie comes from Haitian folklore, where a sorcerer raises a corpse by magic; the hunger for human flesh was added by George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.

Why were bonfires traditionally lit at the Gaelic festival held on 1 November?

For their protective and cleansing powers: in some places two bonfires were built side by side and people, sometimes with their livestock, walked between them as a cleansing ritual.

Outside North America, what is the usual name for the whole-fruit Halloween treat rolled in syrup?

Toffee apples became a Halloween staple because the festival falls just after the apple harvest; the fruit is rolled whole in hot sugar syrup that sets hard.

Which 1922 German silent film turned Dracula into Count Orlok without Stoker's estate's permission?

Nosferatu (1922), F. W. Murnau's unauthorised adaptation, turned Dracula into Count Orlok; Stoker's widow sued and a court ordered all prints destroyed, though copies survived.

The term 'lycanthrope' comes from Ancient Greek words meaning what?

Wolf-human joins Greek lykos, 'wolf', and anthropos, 'human'; doctors since antiquity have used lycanthropy for the delusion of having turned into a wolf.

Who helps Donald Duck's nephews win candy in Disney's 1952 short Trick or Treat?

Witch Hazel, voiced by June Foray, takes the nephews' side after Donald fills their bags with firecrackers and soaks them, then brews a potion to win the candy back.

Which playwright turned the 1692 Massachusetts witchcraft trials into the drama The Crucible?

Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as a parallel to the McCarthy-era hunt for communists; the real trials sent nineteen people to the gallows.

Which medieval allegory, possibly enacted by people dressed as corpses, may be the origin of Halloween costume parties?

The danse macabre shows Death leading every rank of society to the grave, an image that probably gained ground with the Black Death of the 14th century; village pageants may have acted it out in corpse costume.

Which kitchen staple is the classic defence against vampires in European folklore and horror stories?

Garlic was worn, hung in windows or rubbed on chimneys and keyholes to keep vampires out; in Romania it could even be placed in a corpse's mouth.

During which period did American Halloween haunted houses first emerge as a community pastime?

Haunted houses spread in the United States during the Great Depression, as parents and civic groups organised spooky attractions to keep young pranksters out of mischief on Halloween.

Which Halloween film dropped the series' masked killer for a plot about deadly Silver Shamrock masks?

Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) abandoned Michael Myers for a story about Silver Shamrock masks rigged to kill children; the franchise brought Myers back in 1988.

Skeletons personifying death may stem from a prophet's vision of a valley of the dead in which biblical book?

Ezekiel 37 has the prophet watch the remains littering a valley knit back into bodies and stand up as a vast army; Bruegel later painted an army of skeletons in The Triumph of Death.

In Ireland and Scotland, Halloween masks were traditionally known by what name?

False faces is the old name: an 1890 account from Ayr has boys 'rinning aboot wi' their fause-faces on', lanterns in hand, as they went round the doors.

In which English county is the Celtic festival of 1 November called Kalan Gwav or Allantide?

Cornwall calls it Kalan Gwav, 'first day of winter', or Allantide, when families gave one another large polished red 'Allan apples' as tokens of good luck.

'Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus' was first published in which year?

Frankenstein first appeared in 1818, published anonymously in three volumes by Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones in London; the revised 1831 edition carried Mary Shelley's name.

Which monstrous humanoid of folklore haunts graveyards and feeds on human flesh?

Ghoul comes from Arabic ghūl, from a root meaning 'to seize': a shape-shifting demon said to lure travellers into the desert before devouring them.

Which Scottish poet wrote the long poem 'Halloween' in 1785?

Robert Burns filled 'Halloween' with courting charms: his young folk pull kail stalks with their eyes shut and burn pairs of nuts on the fire to learn how their future marriages will turn out.

The mask worn by the killers in Wes Craven's 1996 slasher was created by which costume company?

Fun World, the New York costume company, sold the mask from 1991 as 'The Peanut-Eyed Ghost' in its Fantastic Faces line; Scream's makers licensed it for Ghostface.

In which Massachusetts town are the Sanderson sisters resurrected in Hocus Pocus (1993)?

Hocus Pocus is set in Salem, Massachusetts, where Max lights the Black Flame Candle and revives the Sanderson sisters, played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy.

What title does Jack Skellington hold in the 1993 stop-motion film he stars in?

Jack Skellington is the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, its ruler and star; bored with scaring, he stumbles into Christmas Town and becomes obsessed with Christmas.

Who plays the 'bio-exorcist' Betelgeuse in Tim Burton's 1988 comedy Beetlejuice?

Michael Keaton was cast by Tim Burton again as Batman (1989), to an outcry from comic-book fans who knew him as a comic actor.

Who sang 1984's chart-topping 'Ghostbusters' theme?

Ray Parker Jr. wrote and sang 'Ghostbusters', which topped the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks in 1984; Huey Lewis later sued over its resemblance to 'I Want a New Drug'.

What is the name of the burlap-masked child demon who links the stories in Trick 'r Treat (2007)?

Sam turns up whenever someone breaks a Halloween tradition: he attacks a recluse who scares children off his doorstep, then spares him once a candy bar lands in the old man's lap.

Which 2022 sequel became the thirteenth film in the Halloween franchise?

Halloween Ends hands much of its story to a newcomer, Corey, rather than its masked killer, and was Jamie Lee Curtis's seventh film as Laurie Strode.

On roughly what budget was the 1978 slasher Halloween made?

$300,000 was so little that many of the actors wore their own clothes and Jamie Lee Curtis's wardrobe came from J.C. Penney for about $100; the film went on to gross some $70 million.

The masked killer of the 1978 film Halloween stalks babysitters in which fictional Midwestern town?

Haddonfield is where he had murdered his teenage sister on Halloween 15 years earlier, the crime that got him committed.

Producer Debra Hill cast Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween partly because of whose horror fame?

Her mother Janet Leigh had starred in Psycho, so Hill reckoned the casting would be great publicity; mother and daughter then appeared together in The Fog.

David Gordon Green's 2018 slasher Halloween ignores every earlier film in the series except which one?

The 1978 original is the only earlier film the 2018 sequel counts, so Laurie Strode is no longer the killer's sister, a twist the 1981 follow-up had introduced.

Which 1975 cult musical holds the record, as of 2025, for the longest theatrical run in film history?

The Rocky Horror Picture Show flopped on release, then opened at midnight at New York's Waverly Theater in April 1976, where audiences began dressing as the characters and talking back to the screen.

Which veteran horror actor performs the spoken-word rap on Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'?

Vincent Price recorded the rap in two takes; songwriter Rod Temperton had written its words in a taxi on the way to the studio that day, after Quincy Jones's wife suggested Price.

Who directed the 'Thriller' music video, the first ever selected for the US National Film Registry?

John Landis got the job after Michael Jackson saw his An American Werewolf in London; that film's make-up artist, Rick Baker, turned Jackson into the video's werecat.

Who recorded the 1962 novelty hit 'Monster Mash'?

Bobby 'Boris' Pickett, doing a horror-star impression, recorded 'Monster Mash' with the Crypt-Kickers; it hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the week before Halloween 1962.

Which fortune-telling novelty is said to have chosen its own name at a Baltimore sitting?

Ouija is the word the board is said to have spelled when medium Helen Peters asked what it should be called in 1890; asked what that meant, it answered 'good luck'.

What is the name of the masked killer's psychiatrist in the 1978 film Halloween?

Dr. Sam Loomis, played by Donald Pleasence, hunts his escaped patient through the film; the name was borrowed from John Gavin's character in Hitchcock's Psycho.

Which US city was so plagued by 'Devil's Night' arson in the 1980s that citizens formed patrols?

Detroit answered its Devil's Night fires with Angels' Night, when tens of thousands of volunteers patrolled their own neighbourhoods around Halloween and the arson fell away.

Which actor played the Count in Universal's 1931 Dracula after playing him on Broadway?

Bela Lugosi had played the vampire on Broadway from 1927, yet Universal considered a string of other actors before giving him the film; Tod Browning directed.

Which actor wore Jack Pierce's make-up as the monster in Frankenstein (1931)?

Boris Karloff was billed only as '?' in the film's opening credits; Universal quickly copyrighted the look that Jack Pierce had built on him.

Which actor played the doomed Larry Talbot in Universal's 1941 horror film The Wolf Man?

Lon Chaney Jr. played Talbot here and in four sequels; screenwriter Curt Siodmak invented much of the film's werewolf lore, including the pentagram that marks the next victim.

Who directed The Exorcist (1973)?

William Friedkin was the choice of novelist William Peter Blatty, who wrote and produced the film and admired the documentary realism of Friedkin's The French Connection.

Cassandra Peterson found fame hosting which weekly Los Angeles B-picture show?

Elvira's Movie Macabre began on KHJ-TV in 1981 after plans to revive The Vampira Show fell through; Vampira's creator Maila Nurmi then sued Cassandra Peterson over the character, and the court sided with Peterson.

Which Orlando theme park launched Halloween Horror Nights in 1991 as a three-night event?

Universal Studios created it after a troubled first year at its new Florida park, as an after-hours party called Fright Nights with just one haunted house.

Which California event, launched in 1973, was the first Halloween event staged by a theme park?

Knott's Scary Farm began in 1973 as a three-night Halloween Haunt at Knott's Berry Farm; one ride operator put on a gorilla suit to jump out at guests, and by the next year it sold out nightly.

George A. Romero premiered Night of the Living Dead in 1968 in which Pennsylvania city?

Pittsburgh's Fulton Theater hosted the premiere; when the distributor changed the film's title, the copyright notice was accidentally dropped, and the film slipped into the public domain.

The 2009 stop-motion film Coraline is based on a novella by which author?

Neil Gaiman's novella sends Coraline through a locked door to a copy of her home, where an Other Mother with buttons for eyes offers to let her stay if she will have buttons sewn over her own.

Which confectioner makes Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, created by H. B. Reese in 1928?

Hershey makes Reese's Peanut Butter Cups; H. B. Reese, a former Hershey dairy farmer, created them in 1928 and Hershey bought his company in 1963.

Per a 2018 National Retail Federation report, how much would Americans spend on pet costumes?

The NRF's 2018 survey projected $480 million on pet costumes, with roughly 30 million Americans planning to dress up a pet, out of $9 billion total Halloween spending.

How many 'happy haunts' does the Ghost Host say live in Disney's Haunted Mansion?

999 happy haunts live there, the Ghost Host says, with room for a thousand; the mansion's shell stood finished from 1963, but World's Fair work and a redesign after Walt Disney's death kept it shut until 1969.

In the 1966 Peanuts Halloween special, Linus says the Great Pumpkin rises from the pumpkin patch that is most what?

Sincere is Linus's test: the Great Pumpkin picks the patch with the least hypocrisy, so Linus waits all night in his and then vows to find a truly sincere one next year.

The Blair Witch Project's students hike near which Maryland town?

Burkittsville is a real Maryland village, but its witch is not: the directors invented the legend in 1993 and sold the film by listing its three actors as missing or dead.

In The Conjuring (2013), the Warrens help which family in a Rhode Island farmhouse?

The Perrons were a real family: Roger, Carolyn and their five daughters moved into the Harrisville farmhouse in 1971, and they appeared in the film's own trailers to back its 'true story' billing.

Roughly how much did the National Retail Federation forecast Americans would spend on Halloween in 2025?

$13.1 billion was the forecast, a record at the time and about $114 for every person celebrating; costumes and decorations each took more than $4 billion, ahead of candy.

Pangangaluluwa, a rural children's custom on All Hallows' Eve, is a form of souling in which country?

The Philippines keeps Pangangaluluwa mostly in rural areas: singers draped in white pose as souls from purgatory and go house to house singing for prayers and sweets such as rice cakes.

In 2001 Disneyland began re-dressing its Haunted Mansion each autumn with characters from which film?

The Nightmare Before Christmas takes over the ride as Haunted Mansion Holiday: Jack Skellington arrives as 'Sandy Claws' on Christmas Eve, and a giant gingerbread house fills the ballroom table.

Whose Halloween-eve radio play The War of the Worlds reportedly convinced some listeners that Martians had invaded?

Orson Welles directed and narrated the play, which told its story as news bulletins breaking into a programme of dance music. He closed by reminding listeners that it was Halloween.

The low-lying fog in a Halloween punch bowl often comes from dry ice, the solid form of which gas?

Carbon dioxide turns straight from a solid into a gas, a change called sublimation. Dropping dry ice into water speeds it up and makes dense fog that sinks to the floor.

Which sweet ice-cream topping stood in for blood in the shower scene of Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Psycho?

Chocolate syrup was the fake blood in Psycho's shower scene. Hitchcock shot the film in black and white, so nobody in the cinema could tell that it was brown.

Which German monk sent out his Ninety-five Theses on Halloween 1517, a date Protestants mark as Reformation Day?

Martin Luther sent the Theses to the Archbishop of Mainz that day. The famous tale that he nailed them to a Wittenberg church door was first told by a colleague, and some historians doubt it happened.

Which aerosol product did Los Angeles ban from Hollywood on Halloween night with a 2004 city ordinance?

Silly String was barred from Hollywood for the night by section 56.02 of the city code. Its inventors had set out to make a spray-on instant cast for a broken arm or leg.

Which coffee chain began selling the pumpkin spice latte in autumn 2003 and later trademarked the abbreviation PSL?

Starbucks sold the drink for more than a decade before it contained any pumpkin at all. The recipe was changed in 2015, after customers demanded real pumpkin.

Which grim collective noun is traditionally given to a flock of crows, the clever birds of the genus Corvus?

A murder is the old name for a gathering of crows. The birds earn some respect, though: studies show they recognise individual human faces and pass on which people are dangerous.

Which Oscar-winning actor played David S. Pumpkins, in a pumpkin-print suit, on Saturday Night Live?

Tom Hanks first played him in the 2016 'Haunted Elevator' sketch, flanked by two dancing skeletons. He found the part so bizarre that he suggested Chris Hemsworth take it instead.

Witches chant 'Double, double toil and trouble' over a cauldron in which Shakespeare tragedy?

Macbeth meets the Weird Sisters early in the play, when they hail him as a future king. Their prophecy sets him on a violent path to the throne.

Which president's ghost is Winston Churchill said to have met after a bath while staying at the White House?

Abraham Lincoln is the White House's most reported ghost, said to have walked its halls since 1865. Grace Coolidge and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands are also claimed to have seen him.

In Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, the Count's castle stands in the Carpathian Mountains of which region of Romania?

Transylvania is where the young solicitor Jonathan Harker travels on business at the start of the novel. Stoker did most of his research for the book at the London Library.

Which talking Great Dane rides in the Mystery Machine van with Fred, Daphne, Velma and Shaggy?

Scooby-Doo was briefly rewritten as a sheepdog, because his creators feared a Great Dane would seem too much like the comic-strip dog Marmaduke. The Great Dane was restored before the show went ahead.

What name does the shape-shifting monster use when it appears as a dancing clown in Stephen King's novel It?

Pennywise is only the favourite disguise of an ancient being that preys on the children of Derry, Maine, roughly every 27 years. Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgård have both played the part.

Which author, called the 'Stephen King of children's literature', wrote the Goosebumps series of horror books?

R. L. Stine has sold over 400 million Goosebumps books in 35 languages. He started out far from horror, writing dozens of joke books for children as Jovial Bob Stine.

Which singer and actress plays the witch Winifred Sanderson, chief villain of Disney's 1993 comedy Hocus Pocus?

Bette Midler has called Hocus Pocus the most fun she had had in her career up to that point. The part of the lead witch was originally written for Cloris Leachman.

Which piece of sports gear has hidden Jason Voorhees's face since the third Friday the 13th film?

A hockey mask only arrives in Part III, when Jason takes one from a victim. In the film before it he hid his face under a sack.

In Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven, which single word does the bird repeat to the grieving narrator?

Nevermore is the raven's only answer to everything the heartbroken narrator asks. The poem made Poe a household name almost overnight in 1845, though it earned him little money.

In the novel Frankenstein, what is the first name of the young scientist who builds the creature?

Victor Frankenstein is the maker, while the creature he builds is never given a name in the book. The 1931 film renamed the scientist Henry.

Which Pixar film follows a boy named Miguel into the Land of the Dead during Mexico's Día de los Muertos?

Coco is the name of the hero's great-grandmother, not of the boy himself. Miguel has to teach himself the guitar in secret, because his family has banned music.

In Ghostbusters (1984), the giant Stay Puft mascot that stomps through New York is made of which sweet?

Marshmallow is what Ray Stantz pictures when the team must choose the shape of its destroyer. The mascot was modelled on the Pillsbury Doughboy and the Michelin Man.

In the first Harry Potter story, which creature is found loose inside Hogwarts on Halloween night?

A troll, a mountain one, is found loose in the school that night. Harry and Ron save Hermione from it in the girls' toilets, and that rescue is how the trio become friends.

Which sitcom's annual 'Halloween Heist' episodes began with a bet over stealing the boss's medal before midnight?

Brooklyn Nine-Nine's Jake Peralta bets Captain Holt that he can lift the medal from a locked safe before midnight, and wins. The episode became the first of the show's yearly heists.

Which company makes the seasonal 'monster cereals' Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry?

General Mills launched the line in 1971 with Count Chocula and Franken Berry. A year later, a dye in Franken Berry was found to be turning some children's stools pink, and the recipe was changed.

Which toy company launched Monster High, a doll line about the teenage children of famous monsters, in 2010?

Mattel saw Monster High become the second best-selling doll brand in North America at one point. One of its original characters, Frankie Stein, is the daughter of Frankenstein's monster and his bride.

Which US state joined the Union on Halloween 1864 and marks its statehood with an official state holiday?

Nevada became the 36th state in a rush, days before the 1864 presidential election, the second state added during the Civil War. State offices close for Nevada Day each October.

In Wicked, what name is given to the green-skinned girl who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West?

Elphaba is named after the sound of the initials of L. Frank Baum, who wrote the original Oz books. The name was coined for a 1995 novel, and Idina Menzel won a Tony in the stage role.

Which 1960s sitcom family lives at 1313 Mockingbird Lane?

The Munsters drew higher ratings than the equally spooky Addams Family, which aired in the same years. Herman, the head of the house, is modelled on Frankenstein's monster.

In The Addams Family, what is the name of the disembodied hand that helps around the mansion?

Thing began in the original cartoons as a mysterious figure watching the household from around corners, and only became a hand in the 1960s TV series. There it reached out of boxes placed in every room.

A pumpkin painted which colour on a doorstep signals non-food treats for children with food allergies?

Teal pumpkins began with a food-allergy support group in East Tennessee and were taken up nationally in 2014. Homes that display one keep their non-food treats in a separate bowl.

Talk of a 'curse of the pharaohs' multiplied after Howard Carter's team opened which ruler's tomb in 1922?

Tutankhamun's tomb was opened on a dig financed by Lord Carnarvon, whose death soon afterwards set off the curse stories. Howard Carter himself dismissed them as 'tommy-rot'.

In Irish folklore, which wailing female spirit is said to herald the death of a family member?

Banshee legends often give her long streaming hair, and in some she can only keen while she combs it. Scotland has a cousin who washes the bloodstained clothes of those about to die.

Which type of spirit is blamed for unexplained knocking sounds and for objects being thrown about a house?

Poltergeist is German for 'noisy ghost'. Cases often centre on a teenager, usually a girl, and one early psychical researcher put them down to a 'naughty little girl' throwing things about to scare people.

Which long-handled farming tool does the Grim Reaper, the hooded skeleton who collects souls, traditionally carry?

A scythe has stood for death in art since the medieval period, borrowed from farming and the turning seasons. In Poland the same figure traditionally wore a white robe.

The full moon after the harvest moon, usually in October, is traditionally named for which group of people?

Hunters gave their name to the autumn full moon that follows September's harvest moon. The golden or reddish tint of both, seen near the horizon, comes from the atmosphere scattering the light.

Which legendary ghost ship, doomed to sail forever without reaching port, was an omen of doom to sailors?

The Flying Dutchman was reported by crews in the 1800s and 1900s as a vessel glowing with a ghostly light. To see it was taken as a sign of disaster ahead.

In a popular sleepover legend, which ghost appears when her name is chanted repeatedly into a candlelit mirror?

Bloody Mary grew out of an older fortune-telling ritual, in which a young woman climbed the stairs backwards with a candle and a hand mirror to glimpse her future husband's face.

Which wife of Henry VIII is said to haunt the Tower of London carrying her head under her arm?

Anne Boleyn was beheaded for treason in 1536 and buried in the Tower's own church, St Peter ad Vincula. Her ghost is supposed to haunt that church as well as the White Tower.

Which European capital's catacombs, built in old stone quarries, hold the remains of more than six million people?

Paris built the ossuary in tunnels made to shore up its ancient stone quarries. They run south from a former city gate whose French name means 'Gate of Hell'.

Sarah Winchester, builder of California's rambling 'Mystery House', was heiress to a fortune made from what?

Rifles made the Winchester money. The famous tale that a medium told Sarah to house the ghosts of people the guns had killed has no evidence behind it; her habit of abandoning work mid-build made the maze.

Which 5 November celebration, born of a failed 1605 plot, eclipsed Halloween customs among the English?

Guy Fawkes Night marks the arrest of a plotter caught guarding explosives beneath the House of Lords. By the late 1700s children were begging for money with effigies of him.

In which magazine did cartoonist Charles Addams publish many of the original Addams Family cartoons from 1938?

The New Yorker ran about half of the 150 cartoons. The family had no names until the 1960s: Morticia and Wednesday were named for a 1962 doll set, Gomez and Pugsley for the TV series.

Which 30 April festival did German folklore link to a witches' meeting on the Brocken, the highest Harz peak?

Walpurgis Night is the eve of the feast of Saint Walpurga, an 8th-century abbess whose prayers were thought to work against evil magic. In parts of Europe people light bonfires that night to keep witches away.

Which author of Fahrenheit 451 wrote The Halloween Tree, a 1972 novel tracing the holiday's history?

Ray Bradbury later wrote and narrated a 1993 animated version of the book for television. It won him an Emmy.

Which Agatha Christie detective investigates a girl's drowning at a children's party in the novel Hallowe'en Party?

Hercule Poirot is called in by his novelist friend Ariadne Oliver, who was a guest when the girl died. Kenneth Branagh loosely adapted the story in 2023 as A Haunting in Venice.

Which First Lady is reported to have been the first to decorate the White House for Halloween, in 1958?

Mamie Eisenhower was a fashion icon of the 1950s, known for her bangs and her love of pink. She had several rooms of the mansion redone in pink and green, her favourite colours.

Which Russian composer wrote Night on Bald Mountain, the witches' sabbath music heard in Disney's Fantasia?

Modest Mussorgsky never heard the piece played: it was not performed in any form during his lifetime. Millions first met it through Leopold Stokowski's arrangement for the 1940 film.

Halloween is also 'Founder's Day' for which youth organisation, marking the birthday of Juliette Gordon Low?

Girl Scouts mark the day because their founder was born in Savannah, Georgia, on Halloween 1860. She set up the country's first troop in the same city in 1912.

The Amityville Horror, the haunted-house story of 112 Ocean Avenue, takes place in which part of New York State?

Long Island's Amityville became famous after the Lutz family moved into the house in December 1975. They fled 28 days later, saying they had been terrorised by paranormal events.

Which English musician's debut album Tubular Bells supplied the chilling piano theme of The Exorcist?

Mike Oldfield was 19 when recording began, and he played almost every instrument himself. The album sold slowly until the film made its opening motif famous.

Which American singer-songwriter scored his only US Top 40 hit with 'Werewolves of London' in 1978?

Warren Zevon built the song on a joke suggestion from Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers. Of the 59 takes recorded, it was the second that was released.