50 free zombies trivia questions with answers. This zombies trivia quiz digs through the whole undead canon. It starts with the real thing - the Haitian roots of the word, Clairvius Narcisse, the pufferfish toxin theory and the odd law in Haiti's penal code - then follows the monster to Hollywood: White Zombie, George Romero's Living Dead films, the Italian rip-offs, Return of the Living Dead's brain-eaters, 28 Days Later's sprinting infected, Zombieland, World War Z, Train to Busan and beyond. There is a full spread of TV and games too - The Walking Dead on page and screen, iZombie, Dead Set, Kingdom, Resident Evil, Left 4 Dead, Plants vs. Zombies, Call of Duty Zombies, The Last of Us - plus the Thriller video, the CDC's zombie-preparedness stunt, the largest zombie walk on record and the fungus that really does zombify ants. Around a third of the questions are easy warm-ups; the rest climb toward the detail only a genre completist would know. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and the primary sources it cites, and each explanation adds one more thing worth knowing.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Dictionaries trace the English word 'zombie' back to which group of African languages?
Bantu
The Kikongo word 'zumbi' is one likely root; the English word was already recorded in the 18th century, long before any movie monster.
Q 02Which 1929 W. B. Seabrook travel book introduced Western readers to the Haitian voodoo zombie?
The Magic Island
The book was so influential that a Hollywood screenwriter adapted it into a horror film only three years later.
Q 03Which 1932 Bela Lugosi film is generally considered the first feature-length movie of the genre?
White Zombie
The film was made independently by the Halperin brothers and its title was later borrowed by a heavy metal band.
Q 04Roughly how many years after his 1962 'death' did Clairvius Narcisse reappear at a Haitian market?
18
He convinced his family with a childhood nickname and intimate family details, and his case became the most famous alleged 'real' zombie.
Q 05Wade Davis claimed Haitian 'zombie powder' relied on tetrodotoxin, found in which animal?
Pufferfish
Davis called the mixture 'coup de poudre' and turned his 1982 Haiti fieldwork into the book The Serpent and the Rainbow.
Q 06Haiti's Penal Code classes drugging someone into a prolonged lethargic coma without killing them as what?
Attempted murder
The article goes further: if the person is then buried, the act is treated as murder regardless of what happens afterwards.
Q 07Wes Craven's 1988 film The Serpent and the Rainbow follows an anthropologist sent to Haiti by whom?
A drug company
The company hoped the drug behind zombification could be turned into a 'super anesthetic'; the film is loosely based on Wade Davis's non-fiction book.
Q 08The word 'zombie' is never spoken in Night of the Living Dead (1968). What did Romero call his flesh-eaters?
Ghouls
Romero said his creatures were something new; it was audiences and critics who attached the Haitian word to them.
Q 09Why did Night of the Living Dead fall into the public domain almost immediately?
The distributor omitted the copyright notice
The notice was lost when the distributor changed the title at the last minute, so anyone could sell copies without paying Romero a cent.
Q 10Night of the Living Dead was shot in rural Butler County, about 30 miles north of which city?
Pittsburgh
The farmhouse location near Evans City has since become a pilgrimage site for horror fans.
Q 11Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978) was filmed largely inside which real shopping centre?
Monroeville Mall
The crew shot overnight after the stores closed, and the mall still hosts zombie-themed events decades later.
Q 12Which Italian filmmaker co-financed Dawn of the Dead (1978) for its international distribution rights?
Dario Argento
The Italian cut, released as 'Zombi', is why an unrelated 1979 Italian film was cheekily titled Zombi 2.
Q 13Lucio Fulci's Zombi 2 (1979) is notorious for an underwater scene in which a zombie fights what?
A shark
The scene was shot without Fulci's approval, with a local shark trainer playing the zombie.
Q 21Which author wrote both The Zombie Survival Guide (2003) and the novel World War Z (2006)?
Max Brooks
He is the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, and has since lectured to the US military on preparedness.
Q 22Which Star Wars actor was in the full cast of the Audie-winning 2007 World War Z audiobook?
Mark Hamill
Alan Alda and John Turturro were also in the cast; a later 'complete edition' added Martin Scorsese and Simon Pegg.
Q 23In the 2013 film World War Z, zombies pile onto one another to scale a giant wall protecting which city?
Jerusalem
The film, starring Brad Pitt, grossed over $540 million and became the highest-grossing zombie movie ever made.
Q 14What chemical reanimates the dead in The Return of the Living Dead (1985)?
2-4-5 Trioxin
The gas was supposedly developed by the Darrow Chemical Company, and the film is the one that gave zombies their appetite for brains.
Q 15Whose 1992 splatter comedy Braindead (Dead Alive in the US) is regarded as one of the goriest films ever?
Peter Jackson
A reputed 300 litres of fake blood were used for the climactic lawnmower massacre, years before the director tackled Middle-earth.
Q 16What is the name of the highly contagious, aggression-inducing virus in 28 Days Later (2002)?
Rage
Director Danny Boyle never considered it a zombie film at all, yet it is credited with reviving the whole genre.
Q 17In 28 Days Later, Jim wakes from a coma in which deserted London hospital?
St Thomas'
The hospital sits directly across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament, which makes his empty walk across Westminster Bridge all the eerier.
Q 18In Zombieland (2009), what snack does Tallahassee spend most of the film searching for?
A Twinkie
The four leads never use their real names, going by place names such as Columbus, Wichita and Little Rock instead.
Q 19What is Rule #1 on Columbus's list of survival rules in Zombieland?
Cardio
Rule #2 is 'Double tap', and the rules pop up on screen throughout the film as the characters break or follow them.
Q 20Which celebrity plays himself hiding in his mansion disguised as a zombie in Zombieland?
Bill Murray
His character keeps up the zombie disguise so he can still go out and play golf.
Q 24Train to Busan (2016) unfolds mostly aboard what kind of railway?
A KTX high-speed service
The film premiered in the Midnight Screenings section at Cannes and was the first Korean film of 2016 to pass 10 million admissions.
Q 25In the film Warm Bodies (2013), what are the skeletal zombies who have shed their flesh called?
Boneys
The film is a zombie riff on Romeo and Juliet: R, played by Nicholas Hoult, falls for Julie after eating her boyfriend's brain.
Q 26Roughly what share of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009) is Jane Austen's original text?
85%
Seth Grahame-Smith's mash-up hit number three on the New York Times bestseller list within weeks of publication.
Q 27In Shaun of the Dead (2004), what is the name of the pub where Shaun plans to wait out the crisis?
The Winchester
It is the first film in Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, followed by Hot Fuzz and The World's End.
Q 28The Walking Dead premiered on AMC on which date in 2010?
Halloween
The series ran for eleven seasons and 177 episodes before concluding in November 2022.
Q 29Which English actor played sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead?
Andrew Lincoln
He left the show in season nine, and the zombies he spent all those years fighting are only ever called 'walkers'.
Q 30Which fan-favourite Walking Dead character was created for the TV show and never appeared in the comic?
Daryl Dixon
Norman Reedus originally auditioned for the role of Merle before the crossbow-wielding brother was written for him.