There are two kinds of horror fans.
There are the responsible ones who sit down with a classic horror movie, appreciate the cinematography, contemplate the subtext and perhaps engage in a thoughtful discussion about its place in the genre.
And then there are the rest of us.
At some point in the history of home video, someone was watching a horror movie with a drink in their hand and had a revelation:
“Wait a minute. Does this guy say ‘Michael’ a lot?”
And thus, presumably, the horror movie drinking game was born.
The rules are usually simple. Pick something that happens repeatedly in the movie. Every time it happens, take a sip. The better games aren’t necessarily built around deaths or jump scares, either. They’re built around those strange little repetitions you never really notice until someone makes you drink every time they happen.
And that’s where things get interesting.
Because after digging through horror movie drinking games that have circulated online for years, we discovered something unexpected: some of them are actually pretty damn good at identifying the DNA of the movies they’re built around.
Play a drinking game with Scream and suddenly you’re keeping track of the rules governing slasher movies.
Play one with A Nightmare on Elm Street and you’re obsessively monitoring who is awake and who is asleep.
Play one with The Thing and you discover just how frequently a bunch of freezing, paranoid men call each other by their last names.
And play one with Evil Dead II and you begin to suspect that Sam Raimi’s primary directing instruction was simply:
“Somebody hit Bruce again.”
So we’re doing this.
We’ve gone digging through drinking games created for some of horror’s most beloved movies and picked five that do something more interesting than simply instructing you to drink whenever somebody dies.
These are games that weaponize the movies themselves.
Grab your movie. Grab your beverage of choice. Gather a few horror-loving friends.
And please remember that when we say “drink,” we mean take a sip. Pace yourself, substitute something nonalcoholic whenever you want, and don’t attempt to prove your devotion to horror cinema by waking up tomorrow unable to remember the third act.
Because we’re starting with perhaps the most appropriately self-aware horror drinking game imaginable.
1. Scream Drinking Game — The Drinking Game That Knows You’re Playing a Drinking Game
If the phone rings, drink. Yes, we realize what movie we’re watching.
If there was ever a horror movie destined to become a drinking game, it’s Scream.
Wes Craven’s 1996 slasher spends nearly as much time talking about horror movies as it does being one. Its characters know the clichés. They recognize the archetypes. They discuss the rules. Craven’s own site describes the characters as contemplating the “Rules” of horror films while finding themselves inside one.
Randy Meeks famously lays them out for everyone.
Don’t have sex.
Don’t drink or do drugs.
And never, under any circumstances, say:
“I’ll be right back.”
Which presents us with an immediate problem.
We’re about to play a drinking game while watching a movie that specifically warns us that drinking in a horror movie will get you killed.
Excellent start.
The Rules
Various Scream drinking games have circulated over the years, and although the exact rules differ, certain triggers keep showing up.
Take a sip whenever:
- The phone rings.
- Ghostface appears.
- Someone screams.
- Someone references another horror movie.
- Randy starts explaining horror-movie logic.
- Someone says “killer” or “murder.”
- Someone gets stabbed.
- Gale turns something into a news story.
- Ghostface gets knocked down and everyone inexplicably assumes that’s probably good enough.
And because we’re dealing with Scream, there’s one additional rule that feels almost mandatory:
Drink whenever somebody does something that the movie has already told you is a terrible idea.
That last one changes everything.
Suddenly you’re not merely watching Scream.
You’re auditing it.
THE KILLER RULE: The Phone Rings
This sounds harmless.
It isn’t.
Remember what year this movie came out.
This isn’t a world where everybody communicates through text messages. The telephone is practically another member of the cast. In fact, the screenplay literally opens on a ringing telephone.
Casey answers it.
Sidney answers it.
Ghostface calls.
People call each other.
Phones ring in houses.
Phones ring at school.
And before long you’ll find yourself reacting to the sound of a telephone with roughly the same amount of anxiety as Sidney Prescott.
Except Sidney is worried there might be a homicidal maniac on the other end.
You’re worried because you just took another sip.
Why This One Works
Scream isn’t merely referencing horror conventions. The movie is constantly asking the audience to recognize them.
That’s the joke.
Randy knows what kind of movie he’s living in. Sidney knows horror movies well enough to criticize their heroines. Ghostface literally quizzes Casey about horror trivia before trying to murder her.
The audience is invited to participate.
A good Scream drinking game essentially adds another layer to that participation.
Now you’re watching for the conventions too.
Someone investigates a strange noise alone?
There it is.
Someone thinks the killer is dead?
There it is.
Someone starts fooling around at a party while there’s a murderer running around town?
Oh, come on.
And inevitably someone says:
“I’ll be right back.”
At which point Randy completely loses his shit.
You probably should too.
Because the genius of the Scream drinking game is that the rules aren’t being imposed upon the movie.
The movie already gave us the rules.
We’re just dumb enough to drink to them.
2. A Nightmare on Elm Street Drinking Game — Whatever You Do, Don’t Fall Asleep
Nancy is trying desperately to stay awake. You’re making that increasingly difficult.
Most drinking games ask you to pay attention.
The A Nightmare on Elm Street drinking game asks you to perform the exact task that its characters are desperately attempting to accomplish:
Stay awake.
Which becomes increasingly ironic as the evening progresses.
Wes Craven’s 1984 classic is built around one beautifully simple mechanic. Freddy Krueger can attack you when you’re dreaming. Therefore, falling asleep isn’t merely inconvenient.
It’s potentially fatal.
Characters fall asleep.
Characters wake up.
Characters discuss dreams.
Characters try desperately not to fall asleep.
Nancy drinks coffee.
Nancy takes pills.
Nancy sets alarms.
Nancy develops the sleeping habits of a college student attempting to finish an entire semester during finals week.
Meanwhile, we’re doing the exact opposite.
The Rules
Take a sip whenever:
- Someone falls asleep.
- Someone wakes up.
- Someone mentions sleeping or dreaming.
- Freddy’s presence is announced by that familiar sound.
- Freddy scrapes his blades against something.
- Someone attempts to stay awake.
- Reality transitions into a dream without immediately telling us.
- Freddy does something physically impossible.
- Someone dies.
And depending upon which version of the game you’re following:
Freddy delivers a one-liner.
That particular rule becomes considerably more dangerous if you decide to continue playing through the sequels.
By Freddy’s Dead, you may need medical supervision.
THE KILLER RULE: Someone Falls Asleep or Wakes Up
Again, this sounds reasonable.
Until you remember what movie you’re watching.
A Nightmare on Elm Street is constantly crossing the boundary between waking and dreaming.
Sometimes Nancy knows she’s falling asleep.
Sometimes we know.
Sometimes neither Nancy nor the audience realizes it until something impossible happens.
Which creates an unexpected side effect to the drinking game.
You start questioning reality along with her.
“Wait. Is she asleep?”
“I think so.”
“Did we drink?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was she already dreaming in the hallway?”
“Does that count?”
Congratulations.
Freddy Krueger has successfully turned your living room into a philosophical argument.
Why This One Works
Every horror film establishes rules.
Freddy’s rules are simply unusually explicit.
Awake = relatively safe.
Asleep = Freddy’s playground.
Craven then spends the movie eroding the audience’s ability to tell which state we’re currently experiencing.
A drinking game based around those transitions forces you to pay even closer attention to them.
The characters are consuming stimulants because they’re terrified of falling asleep.
You’re consuming something that makes you increasingly sleepy every time they do.
Nancy is fighting Freddy.
You’re fighting biology.
Good luck.
3. Evil Dead II Drinking Game — The Bruce Campbell Abuse Simulator
There are horror movies where the protagonist suffers.
Then there’s Evil Dead II.
At some point during production, Sam Raimi appears to have looked at his leading man, Bruce Campbell, and asked himself a simple question:
“How many different substances can I shoot directly into this man’s face?”
The answer, apparently, was:
Yes.
Bruce Campbell discovers that “leading man” and “human crash-test dummy” are not mutually exclusive.
Blood.
Mud.
Water.
Demonic fluids.
Whatever the hell happens to be inside the cabin at any particular moment.
Ash Williams doesn’t simply battle the forces of evil in Evil Dead II. He gets slapped, punched, thrown, bitten, soaked, possessed, smashed into furniture and attacked by his own hand.
So naturally, somebody turned this into a drinking game.
The Rules
Take a sip whenever:
- Someone says “Ash.”
- We get a demonic POV shot racing through the woods.
- Someone becomes possessed.
- Somebody loses a body part.
- Ash gets thrown across the room.
- Something in the cabin gets destroyed.
- Someone laughs when absolutely nothing about the situation warrants laughter.
- Ash gets covered in something disgusting.
- Ash screams.
- Ash somehow survives an injury that should have ended the movie.
And then there is the rule that feels less like a drinking-game trigger and more like a contractual obligation:
Drink when Ash says “Groovy.”
You know it’s coming.
You wait for it.
And when it finally arrives…
Cheers.
THE KILLER RULE: Bruce Campbell Gets Abused
Forget counting Deadites.
Forget counting chainsaws.
Forget counting shotgun blasts.
Watch Bruce Campbell.
If Ash gets hit, thrown, sprayed, slapped, bitten, smashed, possessed or otherwise physically humiliated:
Take a sip.
Eventually you stop asking:
“How is Ash going to defeat the Deadites?”
And start asking:
“What horrible thing is Sam Raimi going to do to Bruce Campbell next?”
Why This One Works
That’s essentially the engine driving Evil Dead II.
Raimi doesn’t simply direct Campbell.
He weaponizes him.
Campbell’s face stretches, screams, contorts and gets assaulted by virtually every object in the cabin. His performance exists somewhere between horror protagonist, silent-film comedian and human crash-test dummy.
And the violence isn’t merely horrific.
It’s funny.
That’s the secret ingredient.
The more Ash suffers, the more outrageous Campbell’s performance becomes, and the more Evil Dead II transforms from straight horror into a live-action cartoon soaked in blood.
So the drinking game accidentally reveals something fundamental about the movie:
Bruce Campbell isn’t just the hero of Evil Dead II.
He’s one of its special effects.
And apparently Sam Raimi wanted to see whether that special effect could be broken.
4. The Thing Drinking Game — Why Does Nobody Have a First Name?
Welcome to Antarctica.
Population: twelve increasingly paranoid men, at least one extraterrestrial organism, several flamethrowers and apparently not a single first name.
Okay, technically they have first names.
But John Carpenter’s The Thing doesn’t seem particularly interested in using them.
MacReady.
Childs.
Blair.
Palmer.
Windows.
Garry.
Nauls.
Clark.
Norris.
Bennings.
Fuchs.
Copper.
Twelve men. One alien. Approximately zero first names.
These aren’t people.
They sound like the starting lineup of the world’s angriest softball team.
And someone eventually realized that this particular quirk makes The Thing an absolutely wonderful drinking game.
The Rules
An Alcohollywood drinking game published for The Thing in 2013 boils the experience down to three wonderfully simple recurring events.
Take a sip whenever:
- Someone refers to another character by his surname.
- You see fire.
- A piece of equipment gets destroyed.
That’s it.
You don’t need twenty-seven rules.
You don’t need a scorecard.
You don’t need to remember whether Palmer has already been assimilated.
Although knowing that last one would certainly be helpful.
THE KILLER RULE: Someone Uses a Last Name
This is the trap.
“Drink whenever somebody calls another character by his last name” sounds like the sort of rule designed by someone who actually wants you to make it through the movie.
Then MacReady starts talking.
Then Garry talks to Copper.
Then somebody needs Blair.
Then somebody wants Clark.
Then everybody wants to know where Fuchs went.
And suddenly you realize:
Oh.
They do this ALL THE TIME.
There’s also something strangely appropriate about sitting around with friends attempting to remember which characters are still human while everybody becomes progressively worse at remembering anything.
“Wait. Is Palmer the Thing?”
“No, Norris is the Thing.”
“I thought Blair was the Thing.”
“Blair IS the Thing.”
“Then who’s Windows?”
“Windows.”
“What’s his first name?”
…
Drink.
Why This One Works
Here’s where this particular drinking game becomes unexpectedly fascinating.
The surname rule isn’t merely funny.
It reinforces the emotional temperature of Carpenter’s movie.
These men aren’t a group of lifelong friends trapped together.
They’re coworkers.
They live together because their jobs have deposited them in one of the most isolated environments on Earth.
They play cards.
They watch television.
They drink.
They tolerate one another.
But there’s always a little distance between them.
And then something arrives that can perfectly imitate any one of them.
Suddenly that distance becomes terrifying.
The entire movie is about identity.
Who is human?
Who isn’t?
Who can you trust?
Who was alone long enough to have been replaced?
Even the characters’ names feel strangely impersonal.
MacReady.
Childs.
Blair.
Palmer.
Labels attached to bodies that may or may not contain the people we think they do.
And once somebody points out how frequently those surnames are used, you can’t stop hearing them.
Which means a ridiculous drinking game has somehow tricked us into paying closer attention to the social dynamics of one of the greatest paranoia movies ever made.
We came here to drink.
Now we’re analyzing Carpenter.
This was not supposed to happen.
5. The Lost Boys Drinking Game — “Michael…”
There are drinking games built around sophisticated cinematic patterns.
There are drinking games built around recurring themes.
There are drinking games that reveal subtle elements of characterization.
And then there’s The Lost Boys.
Drink whenever somebody says:
“Michael.”
That’s it.
Pack it up.
We found the game.
“Michael…” Drink.
Joel Schumacher’s 1987 vampire movie contains motorcycles, comic books, taxidermy, mullets, leather jackets, Coreys, vampires and enough fog machines to alter the climate of Santa Carla.
But somehow one of the most memorable recurring sounds in the entire movie is Kiefer Sutherland saying:
“Michael…”
Sometimes it’s threatening.
Sometimes it’s seductive.
Sometimes it’s practically whispered.
“Michael…”
Drink.
“Michael!”
Drink.
“Come on, Michael.”
Drink.
At some point you may begin hearing the name even when nobody has said it.
That’s probably a good indication that you’ve had enough.
The Rules
Take a sip whenever:
- Nanook appears.
- Someone has an aggressively 1980s mullet.
- A vampire other than David speaks.
- The Coreys touch each other.
- Someone says or whispers “Michael.”
Already, this is less a drinking game than an anthropological survey of 1987.
But there is another event deserving its own category.
An event that cannot possibly be treated like everything else.
An event that announces itself with muscles, chains, pelvic thrusting and an alarming amount of saxophone.
You know what’s coming.
THE SAX MAN RULE
No rule necessary. Just stand back and appreciate what 1987 has given us.
Tim Cappello appears.
Tim Cappello is shirtless.
Tim Cappello is oiled.
Tim Cappello begins absolutely murdering a saxophone.
At this point, normal drinking-game rules cease to apply.
You simply raise your glass in recognition of one of the most gloriously excessive moments in 1980s cinema.
Because there are movie scenes.
There are iconic movie scenes.
And then there is a shirtless bodybuilder playing saxophone while singing “I Still Believe” in front of a crowd of vampires.
Nothing we write here can improve upon it.
We can only bear witness.
THE KILLER RULE: “Michael”
Obviously.
Once you’re listening for it, The Lost Boys starts sounding like someone’s mother yelling upstairs that dinner is ready.
MICHAEL!
And David makes it even worse because Kiefer Sutherland discovered approximately seventeen different ways to pronounce the same name.
Threatening Michael.
Seductive Michael.
Disappointed Michael.
Come-join-my-vampire-family Michael.
I-may-or-may-not-be-planning-to-kill-you Michael.
“Michael…”
Drink.
Why This One Works
And yet—because apparently we can’t simply enjoy anything without dissecting it—there actually is something interesting happening underneath this ridiculous rule.
Michael is the center of the movie’s seduction.
David isn’t merely trying to turn him into a vampire.
He’s trying to pull Michael away from one family and into another.
Sam wants his brother back.
Lucy wants her son.
The Frog brothers need Michael to remain human.
Star wants him to escape.
David wants him to surrender.
Everyone is pulling on Michael.
So naturally everyone is constantly saying his name.
The drinking game accidentally emphasizes something the movie has been doing all along:
Michael is being fought over.
He’s caught between childhood and adulthood.
Family and independence.
Humanity and vampirism.
Responsibility and temptation.
Santa Carla above ground and the Lost Boys underneath it.
Which is considerably more analysis than we expected to extract from the word “Michael.”
But that’s what makes these games interesting.
Sometimes the stupidest rule reveals exactly what the movie is about.
Sometimes it reveals an interesting filmmaking technique.
And sometimes…
there’s just a shirtless guy playing saxophone.
Not everything needs a thesis.
LAST CALL: The Horror Drinking Games That Almost Made the Cut
We started this experiment looking for five horror movies with drinking games.
That turned out to be a mistake.
Because there are a lot of them.
And some of the games we found lurking around the darker corners of the internet were simply too good not to mention.
Halloween
Drink when somebody says Michael.
Drink when Loomis talks about Michael being evil.
Drink when Carpenter’s theme kicks in.
Drink when you see a pumpkin.
That last rule seems innocent until you remember the movie is literally called Halloween.
Maybe reconsider that one.
Friday the 13th
Drink when you hear the famous “ki-ki-ki, ma-ma-ma.”
Drink when Crazy Ralph warns everybody they’re doomed.
Drink when someone wanders off alone despite being at a summer camp with an increasingly troubling employee-retention problem.
And here’s the safest drinking rule ever created:
Drink whenever Jason Voorhees kills somebody in the original Friday the 13th.
Congratulations.
You’re sober.
Jason isn’t the killer.
His mother is.
We’ll see you in Part 2.
The Cabin in the Woods
This one nearly made our five.
Drink whenever the movie deliberately invokes a horror cliché.
Drink when the control room manipulates the characters.
Drink when Marty behaves exactly like the stereotypical movie stoner everyone assumes he is.
And when Curt attempts that heroic motorcycle jump…
You know.
We know.
The people in the control room know.
Raise your glass.
Final Destination
The Final Destination movies barely need drinking-game rules.
The audience is already playing one.
Every death scene begins with the camera showing us approximately seventeen ordinary objects.
A loose screw.
A clothesline.
A leaking bottle.
A fan.
A candle.
A knife.
A suspiciously placed electrical cord.
And we spend the next five minutes trying to determine which combination of them is about to transform some poor bastard into hamburger.
So here’s the unofficial rule:
Whenever the camera focuses suspiciously on an ordinary household object, drink.
Actually…
Don’t do that.
There are limits.
Return of the Living Dead
“Brains.”
Drink.
Punk song kicks in.
Drink.
Frank starts losing his mind.
Drink.
Somebody does something incredibly stupid.
Drink.
The zombies request additional paramedics.
At that point, just applaud.
Re-Animator
“Dead.”
Drink.
“Brain.”
Drink.
Someone gets dismembered.
Drink.
Someone gets reanimated.
Drink.
Someone gets reanimated who really, really should have remained dead.
Drink.
Herbert West considers the evening a complete success.
The Shining
And finally, we discovered a wonderful little piece of internet archaeology.
There are Shining drinking games still floating around online from the early days of internet movie fandom, including one attributed to 1999.
The rules revolve around the obsessive repetitions that make Stanley Kubrick’s film so hypnotic.
Jack.
Danny.
Tony.
REDRUM.
The Overlook.
The maze.
The snow.
The axe.
Danny endlessly cruising the hallways.
Which means horror fans were apparently getting together, watching The Shining and turning its recurring imagery into a drinking game before YouTube existed.
Before Facebook.
Before Reddit.
Before most of us had internet connections capable of downloading anything more complicated than a JPEG without making a sandwich while we waited.
More than a quarter-century later, we’re still doing it.
There’s something strangely comforting about that.
THE MORNING AFTER
Maybe that’s why horror movies and drinking games fit together so naturally.
Horror is built on repetition.
The phone rings.
The killer comes back.
Someone falls asleep.
Someone says the name.
The music starts.
The monster appears.
Ash gets hit in the face again.
We recognize these patterns because filmmakers deliberately teach them to us.
And a good horror drinking game simply turns that recognition into participation.
You start watching differently.
You notice things.
You anticipate them.
Eventually everyone in the room knows what’s coming.
“He’s going to say it.”
“No…”
“He’s totally going to say it.”
And then Kiefer Sutherland leans into frame.
“Michael…”
Goddammit.
Drink.
So grab some friends, pick your poison—alcoholic or otherwise—and revisit one of the classics.
Just remember the most important rule of all:
If your drinking game requires you to drink every time someone makes a bad decision in a horror movie…
You’re going to need a much smaller glass.
Play responsibly: “Drink” means a sip, not a shot, and every game above works with a nonalcoholic beverage. The monsters are supposed to feel terrible tomorrow morning. You aren’t.
