Hi hi! Thank you so much for playing Movie Night Bingo! Click below for rules, glossary of terms, movie recommendations and other fun extras from Kiwi!
BINGO RULES
How to play
- Gather your friends and pick a classic scary movie.
Mark a bingo square for each match you see on screen. Passionately arguing your case is totally allowed (and encouraged). - Winner is the first person to mark 5 squares in a row, or the person with the most squares marked at the end of the movie. Winner gets to wear the award ribbon for the remainder of the evening, to be reused for the next game!
- Drinking? Take a sip every time someone marks off a square (Do this at your own risk, LOL).
Alternate rules
- Person with the least amount of squares crossed off wins!
- Play as a drinking game - each time somebody gets a bingo you drink, the drunkest person at the end of the night wins. Or loses? Your call!
- Try to get a blackout and check every square off your bingo card.
- Nobody has a bingo? The person with the most *almost* bingos wins.
CHEESY HOLIDAY MOVIE EXTRAS
Movie recommendations
- A Christmas Frequency - Denise Richards is a newly divorced talk show host who has to go on blind dates for her ratings but then, oops!, love triangle with her producer.
- Reporting for Christmas - A very serious political journalists is forced to do a puff piece about a toy company in small town America and, surprise, the toymaker is sexy!
- 12 Dates of Christmas - Amy Smart hits her noggin and finds herself in a Groundhog Day situation where she has to figure out whether or not to bang Zack Morris.
- Holiday in Handcuffs - Melissa Joan Hart + Mario Lopez + a casual kidnapping + major Stockholm Syndrome = this playful holiday romp.
- A Christmas Prince - A spunky journalist lies a lot to capture the heart of a fake European country’s prince. Several absurd sequels!
- Falling for Christmas - Amnesia, single dads, skiing mishaps, Lindsay Lohan, that cute kid from Glee - it’s everything you never knew you wanted!
- Christmas Cupid - A PR exec gets her ass haunted by her dead client & is forced to be a slightly less terrible person & also realizes how much she wants to bang Chad Michael Murray.
- The Knight Before Christmas - A witch sends a medieval British knight to a Christmas fair in present day central Ohio. Why? Who cares? It’s got Vanessa Hudgens.
- Mistletoe Mixup - *TWO* Lawrence brothers + a Big City Gal = a love triangle that’s already checked off several bingo spaces.
- My Santa - One Lawrence brother (the son of Santa) is on a mission to find his own Mrs. Claus but instead finds a grumpy single mom who is really, really good at ignoring red flags.
- The Princess Switch - A baker and a princess switch roles and bad accents and catfish some guys. Two Vanessa Hudgens! Absurd sequels!
Glossary of terms
- Glow up - A makeover in a short amount of time, whether it’s a person taking off her glasses and ponytail or a boring old farmhouse that becomes a winter carnival backdrop.
- Hate turns to love - This square can only be crossed off once hate has actually become love, not once you get the feeling that maybe these enemies will become lovers.
- Big City Gal - You know, she’s got her heels and her designer purse and her big city job and she’s definitely never ever going to wear a flannel unironically until, oops, one day she does!
- Financial trouble - This counts if it’s a single person in financial trouble or if it’s a cozy inn or a speciality bakery or Christmas tree farm or whatever other cutesy business one of the characters owns.
- Attempt at diversity - Basically any person of color with more than a single line or anybody who isn’t straight.
- Truly terrible CGI effects - Snowstorms, angels, ghosts, Santa’s sleigh, you’ll know them when you see them!
- Excessive decoration or food - This is completely open for discussion but probably if you walked into someone’s house or business and thought WTF, that’s probably considered excessive festivities.
- Kid calls the shots - Maybe it’s emotionally immature parents, maybe it’s a kid spoiled rotten but whatever the case, when the kid is telling adults what to do, this box is definitely checked off.
- Sexy Santa - This is up for vigorous debates amongst the group as to what is sexy or not but use your horniest judgement!
- Ill-fitting costume - If you just know in your heart of hearts that the costume was not meant for the person they put it on then you’ve gotta mark off this box.
- Awkward flirting - Depends on who you’re playing this game with but you’ll probably mark this box off for every cheesy movie ever.
- Cringey moment - If you’re cringing internally, you’re marking off this box.
- Scrooge-y boss - Includes bosses who don’t believe in the holidays, managers making people work on the holidays and every other bossly grumpiness you observe.
- Winter sports mishap - Falling off skis, crashing on a sled, snowball in the face, there’s endless options and you’ll probably see them all at one point or another.
- Empty coffee cup - The most egregious of cinematic crimes and once you start looking for it you’ll see it over and over and over again.
- Clearly filmed during summer - Keep an eye out for piles of fake snow and white blankets because, really, who’s got the budget to actually shoot in the winter?
- Love interest ignores red flag - if you were dating that person and would call it a red flag in real life, it’s definitely still a red flag in fake movie world.
- Weird love triangle - We’d class this as anytime there’s more than two people interested in a person or somebody is trying to decide between two people. Bonus points if they’re brothers! (Not really, but it would make for a very fun romp.)
- Overbearing parents - This usually comes to light in cheesy holiday movies when they’re trying to set up their adult children or make them do weird traditions or just generally do things that seem weird for actual parents to be doing to their adult kids.
- Absurd career path - Not absurd in that it doesn’t exist, more absurd in like, uh, I’ve never met a person who does that or it’s unreasonable to think they’d make that much money off that career path. Examples include royal family journalist, holiday cookie baker, interior designer for dogs, etc etc etc
- Zany sound effect - You know when they do a zany kazoo when somebody falls or a big snore or fake clapping or any number of other fake sounds that you know were added in after the fact.
- Precocious child - Slightly different from kid calling the shots, this is a kid who is way too smart for their own good and can usually be spotted slinging one-liners and zingers galore.
- Tantrum over a small annoyance - Basically what we’d consider a Karen moment in real life, when somebody is throwing a hissy fit over something that is absolutely not the end of the world.
- Minor villain - Think about the word villain loosely here, in this case it’s the bank manager who is going to foreclose on the tree farm or the mean influencer who is trying to cancel our heroine or the boss making them work on Christmas. Fair game for fights and debates!
- Actually kinda good? - In our humble opinion you can check this box off even if the movie is only slightly less cheesy than you were expecting.
- Grumpy guy - This doesn’t have to be a main character, just anybody who is way grumpier than they have any right to be in whatever festive small town the movie takes place.
- Sad backstory - Dead spouses & parents run rampant in cheesy holiday movies but any story that makes you feel even a little bit sorry for their character counts.
- Crime without consequence - You know they always have scenes where they’re breaking and entering or doing light forgery or tax evasion or identity theft or corporate espionage or whatever else and getting away with it? That’s what this box is for.
- Faux pauper - When part of the plot is taking someone very rich and making them have to pretend to be a measly poor for a while. This also counts in cases of memory loss!
- Change of heart moment - That special moment you’ve seen coming from a mile away when the person who hates the holidays suddenly embraces them or somebody gets a big check to save the farm or when that hate really does start to turn to love.
- Obvious foreshadowing - When you feel like a fortune teller because you know exactly what’s going to come down the pipeline it’s time to mark off this box.
- Ridiculous Original Song - This one can be tricky because sometimes you have to wait until the end credits to hear it!
- Weird holiday tradition - Doesn’t have to be the weirdest but just a twist on something that seems normal, for example if they leave dog treats out for the reindeer or have a weird dance/carnival or charity event every year.
- Magic - Anything that wouldn’t happen in our real, every day world but most notable seen when holiday wishes are granted. In some special and spectacular circumstances it can be seen when a medieval knight time travels to present day Ohio.
- Last minute party - In a blink of an eye suddenly there’s a gathering being planned as part of the plot and somehow they pull it off without doing any actual work for it.
- Whimsical nostalgia - This can go two fold in which either the characters in the movie are having nostalgia OR some reference or something they do references pop culture nostalgia for us lucky viewers.
- Small town charm - When we pan over Candy Cane Cove or whatever cozy little town and you see neighbors being friendly and store owners greeting customers, you’ve got your small town charm box covered.
- Professional carolers - You know this because there’s no way a random gaggle of townspeople thrown together could harmonize these songs they only sing once or twice a year.
- Bangable lead - Always up for hearty debate and discussion but if you’d want to bang them, you can check off this box.
- Falling in love too fast - Anything under a week feels criminal!
- Outfit faux pas - Oops, the wrong suit got pressed or they lost their luggage or anything else that they get minority roasted for in the movie is probably a faux pa.
- Town elder in need - Whether they need financial help, help setting up for an event, help baking or whatever else, there’s almost always a boomer looking for a young person to take sympathy on them and lend a hand.
- Singles being shamed - This one can usually go hand in hand with overbearing parents but basically if you hear anybody talking about how someone they know has been “unlucky in love” or getting set up on dates - you can usually check off this box.
- Horny parents - You’ll usually hear this with snide side comments but this definitely also counts for horny grandparents!
- Bad business sense - Oh you took out a loan with a twenty percent interest rate for your tree farm and now you’re wondering why you can’t pay your bills and other absurd situations like that definitely fall under bad business sense.
- Inept at ordinary task - Some of our favorites include driving, cooking eggs, baking, making a bed and anything else that you think is pretty normal but one of the characters just can’t quite understand how to do right off the bat.
- Famous literary plot - Everything from The Taming of the Shrew to A Christmas Carol to The Prince and the Pauper are valid for this box.
- Zero chemistry between leads - If there’s no world in which you can imagine the two lead characters actually banging then this is the box to be marked off. Be careful not to mark it off too soon!
SCARY MOVIE EXTRAS
Movie recommendations
- Teeth - The ultimate good-for-her movie where a gal grows teeth in her, ahem, lady bits and then goes on a bloody spree for the ultimate revenge.
- Thirteen Ghosts - Matthew Lillard gets trapped in a mansion with his ghost glasses and has to get rid of the big bad daddy ghost before everybody in the house dies. Absurd & delightful.
- Trick R Treat - The most 2000s movie on the list mashes together a bunch of separate storylines and every scary movie trope you can think of into one of the most sublime Halloween movies of all time.
- Ginger Snaps - A criminally underrated cinematic gem about two outcast sisters who have to deal with normal teenage girl things like getting your first period, oh, and also getting attacked by a werewolf.
- Paranormal Activity - Oh boy, there’s a demonic force in the house except, yikes, only we can see it for the first half of the movie. You either like it or hate it, there’s no in between.
- Scream - Look, they wouldn’t have made 6+ of these movies if they weren’t the epitome of slasher films and bonus points if you make it through Scream 3, arguably the worst of the lot.
- Jeepers Creepers - Baby Justin Long and some gal are siblings who piss off the wrong redneck, poke their noses where they don’t belong and hear an very catchy tune before realizing, ope, they’re in big ‘ol danger!
- Urban Legend - Tara Reid? Check! College kids? Check! Plot twist? Check! This would have been sold out at Blockbuster for weeks before you could get your hands on it.
- The Faculty - Ok, yeah, who didn’t spend at least a little time in high school thinking their teachers had been body snatched. More creepy than scary but anybody alive in the 90s and attracted to men will tell you this is peak Josh Hartnett hunk era.
- House on Haunted Hill - The 1999 remake is the ultimate hey-there’s-a-contest-to-win-some-money-but-we-really-should-have-asked-about-the-fine-print movies. It’s got all your favorite b-actors of the time and plenty of good jump scares.
- Hereditary - This movie is too scary for some of us but we’ve heard it’s about genetics and family things and is really good and really scary.
- Ready or Not - When you plan to marry into a rich family maybe try to make sure that all your new relatives aren’t homicidal maniacs first.
Glossary of terms
- Impractical footwear: This obviously includes stiletto heels and anything you know would be absolutely absurd and painful to wear to run away from killers. If you’re really itching to be competitive go ahead and argue that barefoot is also pretty impractical when it comes to footwear.
- Decapitation: Heads coming off or a head *mostly* coming off, it’s 100% your call on whether a partial decapitation counts.
- Inanimate object come to life: Dolls, puppets, cars, if there’s anything that shouldn’t move and then starts moving, boom, this square is yours.
- Creepy cabin: Creepy is up for interpretation but if you wouldn’t want to stay there alone you can bet that counts as creepy.
- Classic movie monster: You know, the Draculas, wolf mans, swamp things and all other nods to old Hollywood monster mayhem.
- Unlikely hero: If you absolutely thought they’d be a goner early on and then they make it to end or die doing something heroic, yeah, that probably counts.
- Hookup Scene: You know, they’re touching and kissing and then, wham, something creepy happens.
- Somebody ignores good advice: This is for those dang kids who don’t listen when a random town person says “don’t go to that house” or “You shouldn’t travel that way” or “there’s ghosts in the basement” etc etc etc etc.
- Shitty Boyfriend: This one is up for debate but a solid clincher is if the boyfriend leaves his partner and runs way first. Biggest red flag of all time, huh?
- Insufferable sibling: Also up for debate but typically if somebody is whining a lot and basically being the wettest of blankets it’s likely that they’re the sibling in question.
- Non-traditional killing device - We’re all aware of all the standard stuff, this square is for situations like a decapitation trebuchet or flamethrowers or ninja stars or any other things the creative minds in Hollywood can come up with.
- Misunderstood villain: For the instances when, yeah, the baddie is killing people but also he just wants some friends or he had a horrible childhood or anything else where you’re thinking “murder is bad, but…..”
- Evil child: Usually it’s demonic possession but occasionally you just get a freaky-deaky kid who like stabbing people for fun.
- Bad Sound Effect: This obviously includes incredibly creaky doors, fake screams, bad werewolf howls and anything else that takes you out of the movie for a second because of its fake-ness.
- Had to suspend disbelief: You had to quiet that cynic inside saying “there’s no way that would happen” just to be able to enjoy the movie.
- Doomed romance: We’re talking lovers who get attacked, somebody wanting to ask another person out for an unreasonably long time, jealousy and anything else that dooms a couple before they even really get going.
- Sexy bad boy - While this is self-explanatory we need to point out that sexy looks a different for everybody. Cough *the ghost ghoul in Fallout* cough cough.
- Creatures or critters: If your first thought is “oh boy, I’d call an exterminator” then that probably qualifies as creatures or critters.
- Whiny girlfriend - This counts even if her whining is justified in cases like shitty boyfriends taking said girlfriends to dark or abandoned places.
- Somebody’s possessed: You’ve got to wait until you know for sure that person is possessed not just when they start moving in non-human ways and saying odd shit.
- Horrific CGI effect : You’ll always know it when you see it!
- Joke that isn’t funny - Early 2000s horror movies are basically guaranteed to check off this box every single time.
- Sacrifice of some kind: Animals, humans, blood - sacrifices of all types count.
Shitload of blood - Use your best judgement but if you’re arguing think about the amount of blood you’d be incredibly freaked out to see in your house and you’ll probably win the argument. - Bossy leader: If you’d hate to have them as your manager, they’re probably a bossy leader.
- Technology gone awry: Phones on the fritz, cars that won’t start, security robots in malls that start killing horny teenagers - they all count!
- Animal out of control - Obviously animals who get the blood thirst but you could argue for lots of different animals acting weird and sketchy as hell.
- Sad backstory: Dead parents and spouses are easy ways to check off this box but anything that could be made into a Lifetime movie counts for this square.
- Supernatural: Officially supernatural is ghosts and demons and such but if somebody told you about it and you thought they were full of shit, it’s probably a supernatural force.
- Good guy is murderer: If you didn’t see it coming and were rooting for that person to make it out alive then, yep, that’s probably a tell to cross off this square.
- Ooze: Doesn’t matter what color it is, if it’s oozing - you’re golden.
- Urban Legend: You know when the townspeople or kids in school start saying things like, “well, back in 1967” and “I heard this kid died” you’ve got an urban legend on your hands.
- Drowning: The person doesn’t have to actually drown but they do need to think they’re a goner for it to be considered to mark off this square.
ROM COM EXTRAS
Movie recommendations
ULTIMATE CLASSICS :
- Sleepless in Seattle
- My Big Fat Greek Wedding
- How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
- 10 Things I Hate About You
- You’ve Got Mail
- The Wedding Singer
- She’s All That
- 13 Going on 30
LESSER-KNOWN BUT STILL BANGERS :
- While You Were Sleeping - Peak Sandy Bullock with epic 90s vibes and outfits, this movie is about an unrealistic crush gone wrong after Sandy saves the object of her affection from a train and then pretends to be his fiancee. Also peak 90s Bill Pullman!
- Austenland - Keri Russell is a Jane Austen obsessed spinster who drains her life savings to go on a Jane Austen themed vacation and chaos ensues in the most silly and delightful way possible.
- Never Been Kissed - If you ignore the problematic storyline this is the pinnacle of 90s/00s Drew Barrymore and the ultimate nostalgia bomb for anybody who grew up in that time.
- Love At First Sight - When you meet a cute stranger at the airport who is the complete opposite of you and then he’s seated next to you on the plane and you talk and flirt the whole time but then lose each other in customs but then, aha, fate has something else in the works!
- Blast From the Past - Oops, Christopher Walken thinks the nuclear apocalypse has happened and raises his son in a bomb shelter until he grows up and is tasked with going up into the apocalyptic world above, aka Los Angeles in the late 90s. Jokes galore!
- Serendipity - John Cusack spends one night with his dream woman, who is quirky as hell and refuses to give him her phone number but years later they refuse to commit because they’re still holding out that the universe will bring them together.
- Last Holiday - Queen Latifah lives a boring life until a silly little HR mistake convinces her that she’s dying and needs to spend her life savings on an extravagant European vacation.
- The Cutting Edge - The cutthroat world of ice skating gets turned on its head when a prissy figure skater is forced to pair up with a hockey player and they make their way to Olympics … and into each other’s hearts.
- Irish Wish - If you’re looking for a movie that has very little merit as an object of cinema but has endless opportunities to make fun of - consider this Lindsay Lohan gem about a gal who touches a rock and transports herself into an alternate reality. (No, not like Outlander.)
- Kate & Leopold - Who doesn’t love Hugh Jackman and time travel? Queen of rom-coms Meg Ryan finds a man who says he’s time traveled from the 1800s and instead of having him committed she looks past the red flags and falls in love with him.
- To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before - Fake dating at its absolute best! Lara Jean writes letters to all of her crushes and when they accidentally get mailed hijinks ensue and she needs a fake boyfriend stat!
- Leap Year - Irish hunk? Check! Irish countryside? Check! Enemies to lovers? Check! Amy Adams decides to propose to boyfriend because of a quirky Irish tradition but when her trip gets turned upside down she finds herself annoyingly interested in the grumpy Irish
Glossary of Terms
- Enemies to lovers - This can only be crossed off once enemies actually become lovers, not when you get a tingle that it might happen.
- Un-conventional first date - Meet cutes in airports or accidental run ins or going somewhere that you think would be absolutely unhinged in real life all count for this square.
- Communication mixup - Missed text messages, bad voice to text, no service, note thrown away, etc etc - anything that was supposed to be communication and didn’t make it.
- Absurd career path - Can include people who quit corporate jobs to become bakers the next day or any job that would make you double take if one of your friends told you about it.
- Not telling the whole truth - Any white lies or misrepresentations of the truth or just outright lies to the other person, especially when they know the truth wouldn’t go down well.
- Sees through bad reputation - Usually friends/coworkers/parents already have an opinion of one of the romantic leads but the other one manages to see past that pretty quickly.
- Travel snafu - Cancelled flights, flat tires, reservation mix ups, etc etc etc
- Fake mean to each other - Back and forth snark when you know that neither side really means any of it.
- Meet cute - Oh, it wasn’t planned but somebody spills something on somebody cute or has a minor car crash or any other spontaneous meeting of two main characters and they vibe right away.
- One person falls first - Clearly one person is feeling it way more than the other and it takes a while for the other person to feel the same way.
- Wardrobe malfunction - A torn dress or a forgotten pair of shoes or something gets spilled on them or anything else where wardrobe things don’t go according to plan for a main character.
- Clearly needs therapy - Use your own judgement but it’s safe to say that especially in classic rom-coms you can check this square off almost immediately.
- Reformed bad boy - You know, he used to be mixed up and trouble or a womanizer or a conman or any number of things but now he’s gonna go ahead and be a good guy.
- Precocious child - Any kiddo that has one liners or zingers or generally acts older than their age and is an integral part of one of the character’s lives.
- Change of heart moment - You can always spot the moment when somebody has a big aha and realizes that they don’t want to be making the decision they’re making (or not making) and usually rush to fix it.
- Dramatic declaration of love - When somebody wants to make sure that they tell the other person that they love them in a huge or showy way - usually at the end but not always!
- Forced proximity - Snowed in together, sitting next to each other, have to study together, there’s only one bed, etc etc etc
- Secret love - Either when somebody has a secret crush or when two main characters are dating in secret and can’t tell anybody, at least not yet.
- Tantrum over small annoyance - Usually about a bigger issue but when somebody has a reaction that doesn’t at all match whatever infraction they believe is happening to them.
- Inappropriate power dynamic - Cough, cough, looking at you Never Been Kissed. And all the other movies with bosses or other things that make the power imbalance questionable.
- Scheming side character - When somebody on the side has ulterior motives - even if they think it’s for the main character’s own good! - and we get to see their scheming in action.
- Joke that doesn’t land - Even if it lands in the movie but you think yiiiiiikes, either that wasn’t a good joke in the first place or it didn’t hold up well at allllll.
- Forced into unknown scenario - This applies when somebody is taken on a date when they don’t know anything about it or when they have to pretend to know more than they actually do about something or find themselves in a situation they didn’t expect.
- Chaotic personality - Whether they’re always frazzled or constantly causing chaos or just make terrible decisions - there’s just something about them that gives you anxiety.
- Emotionally immature lead - Google emotionally immature if you need to but basically you can bet your bottom dollar that most of the vintage rom-coms will easily check this one off!
- Love interest ignores red flag - Basically you can expect to check this one off in almost any movie, especially if it’s an oldie but a goodie.
- Obvious foreshadowing - When you feel like a fortune teller because you know exactly what’s going to come down the pipeline it’s time to mark off this box.
ACTION MOVIE EXTRAS
Movie recommendations
ANY IN THESE SERIES MAKE PRIME TARGETS FOR BINGO:
- Any Marvel movie
- Any Jason Bourne
- Any Mission Impossible
- Any James Bond
- Any Batman or other superhero movie
DELIGHTFUL ACTION STANDALONE MOVIES:
- Demolition Man - In a future world where Taco Bell is the only restaurant to survive the chain wars, ex-cop Sylvester Stallone gets woken from his cryofreeze jail sentence to hunt down way worse criminal Wesley Snipes who’s been unfrozen and is committing MDK (murder death kills) all over town. Top tier absurd and delightful.
- National Treasure - Nicholas Cage has to steal the Constitution to save the Constitution, obviously. Plenty of squares to be marked off with this classic.
- Con Air - The king of action movies, Nicholas Cage, finds himself on a hijacked plane full of convicts and he has to figure out how to hell to ground the plane without pissing off any of the baddies on board.
- Waterworld - The ultimate 90s WTF action movie stars Kevin Costner drinking his own piss, jet ski action sequences and an underwater kiss that has zero chemistry. Bonus points if you watch this and then watch the other Kevin Costner dystopian movie, The Postman.
- Face/Off - Plastic surgery and crime collide in this wild ass tale about an FBI agent and terrorist switching faces to try and gotcha each other.
- The Net - Major computer nerd Sandy Bullock finds herself in a web of trouble when somebody gets pissed about a floppy disk she has (yes, really) and her identity gets stolen. Delightfully outdated technology and incredible 90s vibes.
- In Time - Justin Timberlake lives in a world where humans have timers in their arm and have to work to live until the next day until one day he inherits a whole lifetime and vows to bring the whole system down. The entire movie you’ll be asking yourself, how did this get made?
- Jumper - Hayden Christensen (in his prime) figures out he can transport himself anywhere in the world he wants with a little visualization and uses that power to rob banks and live an extravagant lifestyle until Samuel L. Jackson catches him and wants him to use his powers to do way worse stuff.
- Geostorm - Our prince of action, Gerard Butler, creates a network of satellites to protect the Earth from natural disasters only, uh oh, somebody has hacked the system and starts making global warming look like child’s play.
- Kingsman - Several movies about a secret underground society that fights bad guys with impressive dance-like fighting and perfectly tailored suits. And Taron Egerton.
- RoboCop - An oldie about apocalyptic Detroit and money-grubbing corporations trying to turn humans into cybercops that literally blow the bad guy’s brains out.
- The Rock - Government corruption has really pissed Ed Harris off and he threatens Alcatraz island with a nuclear bomb and only Nic Cage and Sean Connery can stop the evil plan and make everybody in the 90s knew way more about Alcatraz
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