If you’re a horror movie fan, you’re probably well aware of all the popular tropes and commonalities many of our favourite horror movies share. But what if you could put all of them together to make your own ‘horror movie bingo’ card and play with friends? Well, luckily someone’s already thought of just that!
The brainchild of illustrator Braidi, Spooky Bingo is an interactive horror bingo game that will generate a new horror bingo card for you on the spot. Full disclosure #1; I’d been aware Braidi had been making this, as a few of us even contributed with all the scary horror tropes we could think of.
Full disclosure #2: Although the content, categories breakdown and layout of the locked squares was designed by Braidi, the game itself was coded using Claude (the AI platform). As it’s not for sale, won’t make the artist any money, and has basically just been made for funsies, I actually see this as quite an acceptable use of ‘AI doing the boring stuff’ (like coding).
I chatted to Braidi about how he came up with this idea:
“I love horror! It’s my job, it’s my recreation, it’s some of the earliest movies I remember watching, and it’s the ones that really stick with me for the long term. They scare me, rattle me, they create discomfort in my comfort of life, and they create comfort for the things I feel discomfort in life (that quote by whoever, I always forget but I find it so deeply true).
“They stick with me and keep me thinking about something once it’s over, keep me questioning thing this, and by reflection show what the world could be instead. They explore into stuff that’s nestled within many of our psyches, even when we know it can’t/shouldn’t be a part of life it’s still there and we should be able to engage with that and express it.
“Violence, horrors, f*cked up things are in the world whether we agree with them or not and we need to be able to process that somehow, an outlet anyway lol spend enough time involved in horror and I just like it in many formats, i like watching spooky movies on my own, and I like watching trashy movies with friends and groups I get fidgetting and restless easily though and like to have something to do with my hands or to talk a lot when im with friends, ahah.
“So I came across Fright Club on bsky and they group watch a scary movie every night at the same time and we all chat about it in real time and get to have a social “talk over the movie experience” but only with people who like that, not so much hassling our friends who want us to shut up.
“A lot of ‘intro death, take a shot!’ comments got my obsessive creative brain thinking about how I can expand on this or gamify it and bingo cards was an obvious first step. I sat with Sophiey on a movie marathon one day and we just called out all the common tropes we saw and could think of and I added them to a list.”
I am quite proud to say I then added to that list. HOWEVER, I’m still thinking of more to contribute even now, such as the Felix the Cat clock – a common trope I only remembered about when watching Obsession at the cinema recently (uncomfortable film, but at least it jogged my memory!).
Spooky Bingo currently lives on Braidi’s own website, and will generate your own spooky bingo card on demand! You can also browse commission opportunities if you want to support a fellow artist.
Or, just give Spooky Bingo a try the next time you get your friends round for a horror movie marathon to make things a little more fun!
What do you think of Spooky Movie Bingo? Genius idea? Comment any spooky horror movie tropes you think we might have missed!
