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🎃 20 spooky Halloween words are lurking in this interactive interlocking grid — monsters, haunted places, and the best treats of the night. Read the numbered clues, then fit each answer into the squares where it crosses the others — a full word bank is printed below to help. Printable puzzle, or play online right in your browser. The answer key sits at the bottom — fold it backward along the dotted line before you start.

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Things That Go Bump

Crossword · Puzzle No. 119ThePuzzleSolver.net

Medium

A Halloween criss-cross crossword. Every answer is something spooky — creatures of the night, creepy places, and the treats that make October 31 worth it. Two answers are phrases, so their clues show the word lengths, e.g. (5,5). Use the clues and the word bank to fit all 20 answers into the grid.

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Word Bank

BAT, CANDY APPLE, CAULDRON, COBWEB, COSTUME, CREEPY, FRANKENSTEIN, GHOST, GOBLINS, GOTHIC, GRAVESTONE, HAUNTED, MASK, MUMMY, SKELETON, SPIDER, TRICK OR TREAT, VAMPIRE, WITCH, ZOMBIE

Across

4 Like a house where things go bump in the night

6 Sheet-wearing spirit that likes to shout “Boo!”

7 She flies on a broomstick

9 Mary Shelley’s scientist — often mixed up with his monster

10 Eight-legged spinner

11 Dark, spooky style of crumbling castles and old horror novels

14 Gives you goosebumps

15 Bandage-wrapped resident of an Egyptian tomb

17 Flying mammal that hangs upside down to sleep

18 A rattling set of bones

Down

1 Caped night creature who sleeps in a coffin and avoids garlic

2 Mischievous little monsters from old folk tales

3 What you dress up in for a Halloween party

5 What kids call out at every door on October 31 (5,2,5)

6 Engraved marker standing in a cemetery

8 Fall-fair treat on a stick with a shiny red shell (5,5)

12 Big black pot for a bubbling potion

13 Shuffling undead creature with a taste for brains

14 Dusty old strands in an attic corner

16 Hides your face on Halloween night

✂ fold backward along this line to hide the solution ✂

Solution hidden on screen — it prints automatically.

Solution

How to Solve This Criss-Cross Crossword

A criss-cross plays like a crossword, but every answer is already listed in the word bank — your job is to work out where each one fits. Here's the method:

Start with the word bank. Each of the 20 words is used exactly once, so cross them off as you place them to narrow every remaining choice.
Count letters before you write. Every slot is a fixed length. Match a bank word to a slot of exactly the right size, then check the crossing letters agree before committing in pen.
Let the crossings do the work. Once a few words are down, each shared square hands you a letter in the answer that crosses it — often enough to place a word without even reading its clue.
Start with the giants. FRANKENSTEIN and TRICK OR TREAT are both 12 letters long, and only two slots in the grid can hold them. Place those first and you’ll have letters scattered all over the grid to build from.
Watch for phrases. When a clue ends with numbers like (5,5), the answer is more than one word — write it in the grid with no spaces, the standard crossword rule.
Save the short words for last. BAT and MASK fit a lot of slots on paper, so lock in the longer, more distinctive words first and let the crossings narrow the short ones down.

New to grid puzzles? Our complete guide to solving crosswords walks through clue-reading and fill strategy from the ground up.

About This Puzzle

Things That Go Bump fits 20 interlocking Halloween words into one grid, from the classic monsters (ZOMBIE, VAMPIRE, MUMMY, SKELETON and FRANKENSTEIN) to the places they haunt (a GOTHIC castle, a HAUNTED house, a lonely GRAVESTONE) and the best part of the night: CANDY APPLE and TRICK OR TREAT. Fun fact for solvers: in Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein is the scientist, Victor Frankenstein, and his creation never gets a name at all. Because every answer also appears in the word bank, it plays fair as a Medium puzzle: the challenge is placement and the crossings, not obscure vocabulary.

Looking for more Halloween fun? Try the jack-o’-lantern nonogram, the ghost nonogram, or crack the witches’ spell in Something’s Brewing. And if you liked this one, the autumn crossword Fall Is Coming plays the same way.

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