jason miller, max von sydow and linda blair in a still from the exorcist; yellow, purple and orange circles with question marks surround them

Courtesy: Everett Collection

Can You Survive Our Scary Movies Quiz?

Test your knowledge of classic Hollywood horror

Matt Alderton,

AARP

Published October 13, 2023

10 Questions

Some people are spooked by on-screen serial killers and psychopaths; others by ghosts and ghouls. If you’ve ever seen the 1973 film The Exorcist, however, you know that few things are as frightening as the Devil himself. In honor of the movie’s 50th anniversary — and Halloween, of course — we’ve gleaned some terrifying trivia from Hollywood’s scariest motion pictures.

Can You Survive Our Scary Movies Quiz?

[ {
 "question" : "True or false: The “head-spinning” scene in The Exorcist was the first-ever use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in a horror film.\n",
 "answers" : [ {
 "answer" : "True",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "False",
 "correctAnswer" : true
 } ],
 "multiSelect" : false,
 "explanation" : "In one of the most iconic scenes in the movie, when a priest tries to exorcise the demon from 12-year-old Regan MacNeil, her head spins around a full 360 degrees in defiance. Although the use of CGI in Hollywood dates back to 1958 — when Alfred Hitchcock used it in his film Vertigo — in this case the effect was achieved mechanically instead of digitally using a robotic head resembling actress Linda Blair. The scene was so shocking at the time that some theaters handed out sick bags.\n",
 "hint" : "",
 "hintLink" : "",
 "questionImgCaption" : "",
 "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
 "question" : "In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece, Psycho, antagonist Norman Bates has a homicidal alter ego based on what family member?\n",
 "answers" : [ {
 "answer" : "His father",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "His mother",
 "correctAnswer" : true
 }, {
 "answer" : "His deceased twin",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "His childhood nanny",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 } ],
 "multiSelect" : false,
 "explanation" : "Motel owner Norman Bates develops a split personality following years of abuse from his mother, Norma. Norman kills his mother and subconsciously resurrects her in the form of a murderous alter ego. On-screen, Norma appears only as a disembodied voice — which actually belongs to three different people: actresses Virginia Gregg and Jeanette Nolan and photographer Paul Jasmin, whose voices were mixed to create Norma’s ambiguous, androgynous timbre.\n",
 "hint" : "",
 "hintLink" : "",
 "questionImgCaption" : "",
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}, {
 "question" : "The climax of the 1976 film Carrie takes place during which high school event?\n",
 "answers" : [ {
 "answer" : "Graduation",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "Prom",
 "correctAnswer" : true
 }, {
 "answer" : "Homecoming game",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "School carnival",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 } ],
 "multiSelect" : false,
 "explanation" : "In Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Stephen King’s first novel, actress Sissy Spacek plays a teenage outcast with telekinetic powers that she unleashes on her classmates in gruesome form when they humiliate her at her senior prom. In that iconic scene, Spacek’s Carrie is doused in pig’s blood — which was actually a sticky mix of Karo syrup and food coloring — during a cruel prank. According to De Palma, the scene was shot in just one take.\n",
 "hint" : "",
 "hintLink" : "",
 "questionImgCaption" : "",
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}, {
 "question" : "What actress made her big-screen debut in 1978 in director John Carpenter’s Halloween?\n",
 "answers" : [ {
 "answer" : "Sarah Paulson",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "Neve Campbell",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "Jamie Lee Curtis",
 "correctAnswer" : true
 }, {
 "answer" : "Heather Langenkamp",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 } ],
 "multiSelect" : false,
 "explanation" : "Carpenter originally wanted to cast actress Anne Lockhart as his heroine, Laurie Strode. However, he ultimately gave the role to Jamie Lee Curtis, who auditioned for the part three times before finally getting the job. Although Curtis had previously appeared on the television series Operation Petticoat, Halloween was her first feature film. She has since reprised the role of Laurie Strode six more times, for a total of seven Halloween films.\n",
 "hint" : "",
 "hintLink" : "",
 "questionImgCaption" : "",
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}, {
 "question" : "The 1980 classic Friday the 13th took place at what summer camp?\n",
 "answers" : [ {
 "answer" : "Camp Crystal Lake",
 "correctAnswer" : true
 }, {
 "answer" : "Camp Firewood",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "Camp North Star",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "Camp Hope",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 } ],
 "multiSelect" : false,
 "explanation" : "A murderer stalks and kills a group of teenage camp counselors one by one as they attempt to reopen an abandoned summer camp in the woods of New Jersey. As it turns out, the camp — Camp Crystal Lake — is actually a real place: The movie was filmed at Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco, a summer camp for Boy Scout troops in Hardwick Township, N.J., that opened in 1927 and is still in operation today.\n",
 "hint" : "",
 "hintLink" : "",
 "questionImgCaption" : "",
 "questionImgCredit" : ""
}, {
 "question" : "True or false: Wes Craven’s 1984 horror classic, A Nightmare on Elm Street, was inspired by a true story.\n",
 "answers" : [ {
 "answer" : "True",
 "correctAnswer" : true
 }, {
 "answer" : "False",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 } ],
 "multiSelect" : false,
 "explanation" : "In A Nightmare on Elm Street, dream demon Freddy Krueger — known for his burned visage and terrifying razor-claw glove — kills teens in their nightmares. A premise that creepy has got to be fiction, right? As it turns out, no. Craven was inspired by a real-life news story about a Cambodian refugee who refused to sleep because he was afraid of being killed in his dreams. When the young boy finally fell asleep, he supposedly died in the middle of having a nightmare.\n",
 "hint" : "",
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}, {
 "question" : "In the 1992 horror film Candyman, the titular character haunts residents in which U.S. housing project?\n",
 "answers" : [ {
 "answer" : "Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "Queensbridge Houses in New York",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "Magnolia Projects in New Orleans",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "Cabrini Green in Chicago",
 "correctAnswer" : true
 } ],
 "multiSelect" : false,
 "explanation" : "Although the short story on which Candyman is based — Clive Barker’s The Forbidden — is set in Liverpool, England, director Bernard Rose wanted to set his film in the United States. While scouting potential filming locations, the Illinois Film Commission took Rose on a tour of Cabrini Green, and he ultimately chose it as the movie setting because “it was a place of such palpable fear,” Rose once said in an interview.\n",
 "hint" : "",
 "hintLink" : "",
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}, {
 "question" : "In the 1996 film Scream, the killer wears what kind of mask?\n",
 "answers" : [ {
 "answer" : "Ghostface mask",
 "correctAnswer" : true
 }, {
 "answer" : "Hockey mask",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "Clown mask",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "Skeleton mask",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 } ],
 "multiSelect" : false,
 "explanation" : "Director Wes Craven randomly found the mask — a cheap, store-bought Halloween mask — at a house while he was scouting filming locations. Although producer Bob Weinstein initially dismissed the mask as being too “goofy” to be scary, Craven ultimately persuaded him.\n",
 "hint" : "",
 "hintLink" : "",
 "questionImgCaption" : "",
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}, {
 "question" : "In the 1990 miniseries and 2017 film based on Stephen King’s novel IT, the story’s eponymous monster most often takes what form?\n",
 "answers" : [ {
 "answer" : "A rabid dog",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "A vampire",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "A clown",
 "correctAnswer" : true
 }, {
 "answer" : "A demon",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 } ],
 "multiSelect" : false,
 "explanation" : "The most famous antagonist in Stephen King’s horror universe might be the titular monster of IT, his 1986 novel that became a TV miniseries. An evil, extraterrestrial entity that hunts its prey by way of exploiting their fears, IT is a shapeshifter that can take many forms. Its favorite form to take, however, is that of Pennywise, a dancing clown who lives beneath the fictional town of Derry, Maine, where he terrorizes children from the sewers that he haunts.\n",
 "hint" : "",
 "hintLink" : "",
 "questionImgCaption" : "",
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}, {
 "question" : "In the 2004 film Saw, how does the Jigsaw killer communicate with his victims?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;\n",
 "answers" : [ {
 "answer" : "Anonymous phone calls",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "A sinister puppet",
 "correctAnswer" : true
 }, {
 "answer" : "Notes written in blood",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 }, {
 "answer" : "Face-to-face from behind a mask",
 "correctAnswer" : false
 } ],
 "multiSelect" : false,
 "explanation" : "Jigsaw ensnares his victims in extremely elaborate — and extremely gory — traps from which they can escape only by following his strict and sadistic rules. Jigsaw often communicates those rules and the consequences for breaking them via Billy, a puppet whose clown-like countenance is an unsettling surrogate. Director James Wan made the original Billy using paper towel rolls, clay and papier-mâché, with painted ping pong balls for eyes.\n",
 "hint" : "",
 "hintLink" : "",
 "questionImgCaption" : "",
 "questionImgCredit" : ""
} ]

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Matt Alderton has written about everything from classic cars and climate change to farming robots and fighter jets for publications such as USA Today, The Washington Post and Forbes. Originally from Denver, which boasts 300 days of sunshine a year, he now resides in Chicago, which boasts three. You can reach him on his website, MattAlderton.com.