You know what horror films are lacking in? Dancing! A nice dance number always makes a movie more memorable. Ellen Degeneres rectified that grievous omission for quite a few classic horror movies. Because you need a laugh after dealing with hundreds of trick-or-treaters. -via Tastefully Offensive
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No offence, but Dog Jareth is the only costume that matters pic.twitter.com/KSZyZvcFGP
— Crayon to Crayon (@CrayonToCrayon) October 30, 2016
The past few days, I've had to restrain myself from just posting everyone's cool Halloween costume, but this one takes the cake. So many people are dressing as the different incarnations of David Bowie. Who knew that the best version of Jareth, his character in the movie Labyrinth, would be a dog? This Tweet is from a Bowie fan account, so it may be hard to track down who did the pup's hair and makeup. -via Buzzfeed
Update: The artist is named Maurene. This is her Pomeranian, and his name is Duff. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Mary Shelley conjured up images of a reanimated corpse in her novel Frankenstein, published in 1818. While the novel was light on the technical aspects, it explored the ethics of a "successful" reanimation experiment. She was not the first to consider the possibility. Scientists and pseudoscientists were experimenting with electricity and its effect on flesh for decades already. After it became known that electricity could make the muscles of dead animals, the effect was even used for entertainment.
People outside of science were also fascinated by electricity. They would attend shows where bull heads and pigs were electrified, and watch public dissections at research institutions such as the Company of Surgeons in England, which later became the Royal College of Surgeons.
When scientists tired of testing animals, they turned to corpses, particularly corpses of murderers. In 1751, England passed the Murder Act, which allowed the bodies of executed murderers to be used for experimentation. “The reasons the Murder Act came about were twofold: there weren’t enough bodies for anatomists, and it was seen as a further punishment for the murderer,” says Burba. “It was considered additional punishment to have your body dissected.”
Atlas Obscura tells the tale of a particularly gruesome 1818 experiment in which Scottish chemist Andrew Ure attempted to bring an executed convict's body back to life. Maybe he should have read Shelley's novel first.
Americans are very familiar with the Salem witch trials, but such witch hunts were going on in many places during that time. Illnesses that no one could explain were attributed to evil forces, and it was an easy leap to accuse one's enemies of causing the pain. Many people confessed, under torture, which reinforced belief in witches. An astonishing number of people died because of those beliefs before citizens eventually became sick of the carnage. England had its share of witch trials. One of the cases, in Pendle Hill, Lancashire, eventually led to accusations against a dozen people.
The trials began when a young woman named Alizon Device, from Pendle in Lancashire in northwest England, was accused of cursing a local shopkeeper who soon afterwards suffered a bout of ill health, now believed to have probably been a mild stroke. When news of this reached the authorities, an investigation was started that eventually led to the arrest and trial of several members of Alizon’s family (including her grandmother, Elizabeth Southerns, a notorious practitioner of witchcraft known locally as “Demdike”), as well as members of another local family, the Redfernes, with whom they had reportedly had a long-standing feud. Many of the families’ friends were also implicated in the trial, as were a number of supposed witches from nearby towns who were alleged to have attended a meeting at Elizabeth Southerns’s home on the night of Good Friday 1612.
By the end of the Pendle Hill witch trials, ten people were hanged for their "crimes." Not all of the cases in this list ended so badly for the victims, though. Read about five of England's witch trials at mental_floss.
Attention, Overwatch fans! Blizzard teamed up with the Japanese gamer magazine Famitsu teamed up for a Overwatch fan art contest. Finalists include digital art, cartoon art, humor, and even food. We don't know how many submissions there were, but the winners are awesome. See both of them plus a bunch of finalists at Unreality.
The lions, tigers, and panthers of Big Cat Rescue always get pumpkins to play with for Halloween, but this year, they also get their own haunted houses!
To the cats, they are just balls and boxes, which is just what a cat wants to play with! -via Tastefully Offensive
The way this story is set up might make you think of The Princess Bride, where Columbo tells Kevin Arnold a bedtime story. But this is no comedy. It's an epic battle between Captain Strong and his evil nemesis Darkman, told as a bedtime story. It's also a metaphor.
Oh yeah, you might want to have a hankie ready. This short film from Jeff Cassidy stars some pretty well known people: Josh Dallas from Thor, Emily Bett Rickards from Arrow, and Tom Cavanagh from The Flash. -via Geeks Are Sexy
They have a workplace pumpkin-carving contest every year, but this are no ordinary pumpkin art, because the workplace is NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Let's take a look at what rocket scientists do with pumpkins.
These pumpkins are out of this world! The ones that do things are impressive, but I particularly like the cow abduction pumpkin. You can read more about the event at Wired. -via Metafilter
The Great Dismal Swamp covers a vast area of southern Virginia and eastern North Carolina. For 200 years, the main residents of the swamp were escaped slaves and their descendants, people who found safety in the place that was too dangerous and unpleasant for those who would look for them. Water moccasins, mosquitoes, thorns, and steamy humidity beat a life of slavery any day. Historical archaeologist Dan Sayers is digging up evidence to supplement what meager historical documentation we have on these communities.
In early 2004, one of the refuge biologists strapped on his waders and brought Sayers to the place we’re going, a 20-acre island occasionally visited by hunters, but completely unknown to historians and archaeologists. Before Sayers, no archaeology had been done in the swamp’s interior, mainly because conditions were so challenging. One research party got lost so many times that it gave up.
When you’ve been toiling through the sucking ooze, with submerged roots and branches grabbing at your ankles, dry solid ground feels almost miraculous. We step onto the shore of a large, flat, sun-dappled island carpeted with fallen leaves. Walking toward its center, the underbrush disappears, and we enter a parklike clearing shaded by a few hardwoods and pines.
“I’ll never forget seeing this place for the first time,” recalls Sayers. “It was one of the greatest moments of my life. I never dreamed of finding a 20-acre island, and I knew instantly it was livable. Sure enough, you can’t put a shovel in the ground anywhere on this island without finding something.”
Sayers had planned to spend a few months digging and then write his dissertation. Instead, he worked for years and wrote a book on his findings. Read about the archaeological digs that tell the story of the people who found freedom in the Great Dismal Swamp at Smithsonian.
(Image credit: Flickr user U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
The Monster from the Netflix series Stranger Things is a humanoid with no face, but its head opens up to reveal a mouth full of terrifying teeth. The series characters call it a Demogorgon, which is a Dungeons & Dragons term. If it weren't so difficult to pull off, this would be the biggest Halloween costume of 2016.
Indiana artist Carl Leck (Instagram user CBLimagery) made this awesome Demogorgon costume with a mechanical system that lets him open up that mouth with a flick of a finger. Redditor ins1der uploaded a slightly longer gif. Here's another look, with some friends included.
LordBrandon made his son a dinosaur costume out of mattress foam and spray paint. He said it cost him about $25 for materials, but a lot in labor. It was a labor of love.
I made a model in 3D, then used software to split it apart into a pattern, then I hung the foam on the wall and projected the pattern with a little pico projector, traced it with a sharpie, and cut it out with an electric turkey carving knife. It really seemed to come alive when I painted the eyes.
He'll be the best-dressed kid on the block for trick-or-treat, but all reddit could talk about was his socks.
My mother never checked my Halloween candy when I was a kid, but that was years before the Halloween candy tampering panic. We picked up homemade treats at quite a few homes. I always checked my kids' trick-or-treat bounty -and confiscate all the Almond Joys. They handed over any dark chocolate automatically.
Daven Hiskey of Today I Found Out explains why parents are so worried about candy tampering. Reports of poisoned Halloween candy turn out to be hoaxes, accidents, or in one horrific case, a parent murdering his own children. Just as in murder, rape, and theft, you're in more danger from family and friends than from strangers. -Thanks, Daven!
Sabrina Faire and her family put on a musical Halloween light show every year. But how many times can you listen to "Thriller" or "Monster Mash"? This year, they had a better idea. It's been very popular with the neighbors and everyone in the city. The Chicago Cubs are currently playing the Cleveland Indians in the World Series. -via Bits and Pieces
Ladybeard is a cross-dressing professional wrestler who became famous in Hong Kong and now lives in Japan. He is also a heavy metal vocalist, formerly with Ladybaby (previously at Neatorama). And for Halloween this year, he's Harley Quinn, armed with Negan's baseball bat! He calls the character Beardy Quinn.
Jolene the golden retriever loves her Gumby toy. It's her favorite! So how do you think she'd feel if it came to life? Watch and see!
Ben Mesches selected his Halloween costume because of Jolene. At first she's incredulous, but then she's the happiest dog ever! -via Metafilter
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