I am a huge fan of the horror genre; there’s little about horror movies that I do not enjoy. I enjoy the masculine horror movies of the West and the feminine horror movies of the East. For those who aren’t familiar with the idea of Western (you know, as in, not Asian) masculine vs Eastern feminine horror movies, I’m not talking about the characters in them. I’m talking about the horror itself. Masculine horror is more of the slash-and-hack type stuff where the true horror is the thing trying to kill you dead. Feminine horror is more subtle, more of a mind fuck. American remakes of Asian horror films usually fail miserably because here in the states we approach horror in a different way.

But that’s not what this is about. We’re talking about a drinking game that can be enjoyed for all horror films ever filmed.

You start with picking a movie and picking your poison (re: liquor). Playing is simple. You do not in any way have to combine all of these categories into one game, but you get a lot drunker if you do. Let’s begin.

1. Characterization Predictions

Characterization predictions can be made before pressing play. What you’ll do is make predictions on what types of stereotypical horror movie characters you’re going to find in the movie. This is, essentially, your pre-game. You can look up how many main characters there are, or you can totally just guess based on what you know about horror movies (usually between 4 to 6 characters who are going to die horribly, violent deaths while one makes it out alive. Two could possibly make it out alive if there is an underlying romance subplot).

So let’s say that you predict that you’ll have a snobbish prom queen, a bookish nerd (male or female, you’re not picky), the dumb jock, the rebellious biker gang member, the hipster, and the stoner.

• If there are less main characters than the number of character tropes you’ve identified, take one shot per character you over shot. (So, if there are 4 characters and you guessed 6, you’ll take two shots).
• Take a shot for every character archetype you guessed wrong.

This will get you through the obligatory opening 15 minutes where you meet the people who are going to be tormented and violently slain by your ghost/monster.

2. Character Death Prediction

Now that we’ve met the characters, you can start predicting the order they’re going to die in. Use what you know about horror movie stereotypes and how they almost always kill the token POC or the woman who is in control of her sexuality and enjoys having sex and thus labeled as a whore by the other characters first. Virgins, or innocent, characters almost always die last or live the whole way through. These tropes aren’t always held up in horror movies, so it’s a gamble.

• Take one shot for every character that dies out of the order you have predicted.
• Take two shots if that character magically returns later because they weren’t really dead.

3. Cause of Death Prediction

You’re going to get drunk here. Here is where you actually try to predict how each character is going to die. You’ll need to know something about the movie to not end up drunk doing this. You need to know what kind of supernatural baddy the movie is about in order to think of things within the realm of possibility.

• Take three shots every time someone dies in a completely different way than what you guessed.
• Take two shots every time a character dies the way you predicted another character was going to die.
• Take one shot every time a character dies ALMOST the exact way you predicted they were going to die.

4. Killer Prediction

This applies only to the movies where the killer is like a masked psycho and there’s a chance that it’s one of the main characters that you think might end up getting killed horribly.

• Take two shots if you predict a main character and it wasn’t one of them at all.
• Take three shots if it was a main character, but not the one you predicted.

5. Fake-Out Prediction

We’ve all seen the movies where they let you think it’s the end of whatever was going on – Huzzah! Nancy killed Freddy! – only to reveal in the very last 30 seconds of the movie that LOL NO THE BAD GUY IS STILL ALIVE! Predict if it’s going to be one of those movies.

• Take four shots if you’re wrong.

6. Scare Shots

Most people will at least jump during a horror movie. It’s just something that we do. If the movie scares you in any way, or just makes you jump because it, “shocked,” or, “surprised,” you, or even because it just got so gross at one point that you just couldn’t even with it anymore, then you’re going to be doing some shots.

• One shot every time you jump because the ghost/killer/chupacabra/what the fuck ever actually did something that made you jump (but not scream).
• Take two shots every time you scream because the ghost/killer/sentient tire made you scream or yell.
• Take three shots every time you jump because of anything other than the thing doing the killing, like a door slammed or the music got really intense.
• Take four shots every time you scream or yell because of something other that Murder McMurderson.
• Take five shots halfway through the movie if you’re so freaked out you can’t even finish it.

And that’s it. That is my horror movie drinking game. Have fun, be safe, try to avoid alcohol poisoning.