British Horror Films
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50 free British Horror Films trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
British horror has always punched above its weight. A small studio on the Thames turned gothic monsters into a worldwide export in the 1950s, a run of strange, unsettling films in the 1960s and 70s is still argued over today, and a new wave since the turn of the century has given the genre some of its biggest hits. This quiz covers the whole story: the stars, directors and studios of the classic era, the cult films that critics first hated and later praised, and the modern chillers set in tower blocks, caves, forests and video calls. Expect questions on plots, casts, source books, locations and the odd piece of behind-the-scenes history. It is written for anyone who enjoys a scary film, not only for experts. Some questions are easy, some will test a devoted fan, and every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Shaun of the Dead, which pub do Shaun and his friends choose as their refuge from the zombie outbreak?
The Winchester
The Winchester is Shaun's favourite pub, and the rifle mounted above its bar, which he and Ed had argued about, proves to be in working order.
Q 02In 28 Days Later, activists free laboratory chimpanzees infected with a virus that is known by what name?
Rage
Rage was conceived as a biological contagion rather than anything supernatural, a metaphor for road rage, air rage and other everyday aggression.
Q 03An American Werewolf in London, a British-American co-production, won the first-ever Academy Award in which category?
Best Makeup
Best Makeup was a brand-new category at the 54th Academy Awards, and Rick Baker took it for transformation effects that changed the face of horror makeup in the 1980s.
Q 04Which British horror star called The Wicker Man, in which he played Lord Summerisle, the best film he ever made?
Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee was so keen to see it made that he worked on the production without pay, hoping to break free of his image as a Hammer regular.
Q 05Which actor played the vampire hunter Van Helsing for Hammer and later Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars?
Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing claimed George Lucas first approached him to play Obi-Wan Kenobi, and only cast him as the Death Star's commander after the two met.
Q 06The lead Cenobite of the 1987 British horror Hellraiser, played by Doug Bradley, became known by which nickname?
Pinhead
Pinhead was known simply as the Lead Cenobite at first, yet Doug Bradley went on to play him in seven sequels.
Q 07In Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now, a grieving couple played by Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland travel to which city?
Venice
Venice draws the couple because John has been hired to restore an ancient church there, just as a serial killer is at large in the city.
Q 08Shaun of the Dead opens a loose trilogy by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg named after which ice cream brand?
Cornetto
Cornetto ice cream appears in each film in a different flavour, and the strawberry one here is red to match the blood and gore.
Q 09Which Harry Potter star played the widowed lawyer Arthur Kipps in Hammer's 2012 ghost story The Woman in Black?
Daniel Radcliffe
Daniel Radcliffe helped make it the highest-grossing British horror film in 20 years, with the biggest US opening in Hammer's history.
Q 10Which British director made the 2002 hit 28 Days Later, shooting most of the film on small digital cameras?
Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle's crew closed streets for only a minute or two at a time, usually on Sunday mornings, to film a London with nobody in it.
Q 11Although The Descent is set in the Appalachian Mountains, its cave interiors were built at which British film studio?
Pinewood
Pinewood Studios housed the whole network of caverns and tunnels, because the filmmakers judged a real cave too dangerous and too slow to shoot in.
Q 12Which 1960 British film about a murderous cameraman drew reviews so hostile that they derailed Michael Powell's career?
Peeping Tom
Peeping Tom later won a cult following and a critical reappraisal, and the British Film Institute now ranks it among the hundred greatest British films.
Q 13The 1960 film Village of the Damned, with its glowing-eyed blond children, adapts which John Wyndham novel?
The Midwich Cuckoos
Q 21Which Hollywood star plays an alien who drives around Glasgow luring men into her van in Under the Skin?
Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson's pick-up scenes were unscripted and filmed with hidden cameras, and most of the cast had no acting experience.
Q 22Neil Jordan's 1984 British film The Company of Wolves, co-written with Angela Carter, reworks which fairy tale?
Little Red Riding Hood
Little Red Riding Hood had already inspired Carter's 1979 short story The Company of Wolves, which she adapted for radio before the film.
Q 23Ken Russell's The Lair of the White Worm, starring a young Hugh Grant, is loosely based on a novel by whom?
Bram Stoker
The Midwich Cuckoos was first meant to be filmed in California, until MGM moved the production to its British studios in 1959.
Q 14In The Wicker Man, Sergeant Howie flies to Summerisle shortly before the islanders celebrate which festival?
May Day
May Day is when Howie, searching for a vanished girl, steals the costume of Punch the Fool to slip into the islanders' parade.
Q 15The 1961 British ghost film The Innocents, starring Deborah Kerr as a governess, is based on which Henry James novella?
The Turn of the Screw
The Turn of the Screw reached the screen by way of a 1950 stage play by William Archibald, which was also called The Innocents.
Q 16Which actor plays Jim, the bicycle courier who wakes from a coma in a deserted hospital, in 28 Days Later?
Cillian Murphy
Cillian Murphy's Jim wakes in St Thomas' Hospital and finds the normally bustling streets around Westminster Bridge and Piccadilly Circus empty.
Q 17Which Polish director made his first English-language film, Repulsion, in London with Catherine Deneuve as a manicurist?
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski had only recently moved to Britain from Poland, and neither he nor his star was fluent in English during the shoot.
Q 18Which American horror star played a Shakespearean actor who murders his critics in the British film Theatre of Blood?
Vincent Price
Vincent Price reportedly counted it a favourite among his own films, because he had always wanted the chance to act in Shakespeare.
Q 19The 1945 anthology Dead of Night, remembered for its ventriloquist's dummy, was a rare horror from which British studio?
Ealing
Ealing Studios was known mainly for comedies, yet the film's circular plot inspired Fred Hoyle's steady state model of the universe.
Q 20The Curse of Frankenstein shocked critics in 1957 as the first Hammer horror film to offer audiences what?
Full colour
Full colour let the film linger on blood, surgery and severed body parts, a break from the black-and-white suggestion of the earlier Universal monster movies.
Bram Stoker's 1911 novel disappointed Russell, who mixed in the English legend of the Lambton Worm to make his film.
Q 24Which British actor, later Proximo in Gladiator, had his first leading film role in Hammer's The Curse of the Werewolf?
Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed's werewolf prowls 18th-century Spain only because Hammer had unused Spanish sets to hand; the novel it adapts is set in Paris.
Q 25Neil Marshall's Dog Soldiers pits soldiers against werewolves in the Scottish Highlands, but where was it shot?
Luxembourg
Luxembourg offered tax deals and ready crews, so it stood in for Scotland in Marshall's first feature as a director.
Q 26In Rose Glass's 2019 British horror Saint Maud, the devout title character works in which profession?
A nurse
A nurse who could not save a patient, she renames herself Maud, becomes a devout Catholic and takes private palliative work in an English seaside town.
Q 27The 2020 British horror Host, filmed during a Covid lockdown, unfolds entirely on a group call in which app?
Zoom
Zoom was also how the film was made: Rob Savage directed remotely while the actors ran their own cameras, lighting, sound and stunts.
Q 28Hammer's 1955 hit took a BBC serial about which scientist and respelt its title to flaunt an X certificate?
Bernard Quatermass
Bernard Quatermass led The Quatermass Xperiment, which dropped the E from Experiment to exploit an adults-only rating that other studios were nervous of.
Q 29Which British comedy film series spoofed Hammer's gothic chillers in 1966 with an entry subtitled Screaming!?
Carry On
Carry On Screaming! was the twelfth of the 31 films in the series, a send-up of the Hammer style made while the real thing was still popular.
Q 30In the 2017 British horror The Ritual, four friends hiking in memory of a dead companion get lost in which country?
Sweden
Sweden's Kungsleden trail is where the friends set out, though the film's old-growth forest was really shot in Romania's Carpathian Mountains.