How can one rank all the horror movies of the last 100 years of cinema? It's easier when you can crunch the numbers with a computer. And that's exactly what Rotten Tomatoes did. The site is all about collecting critic's reviews and moviegoer's opinions, which all come with a certain number of stars. Rotten Tomatoes took horror films that had received at least 20 reviews each and ranked the top 200 according to the statistics. Therefore, if you have a problem with the ranking, well, you can leave a few reviews yourself. They update this list every once in a while.

That said, you have to keep in mind that younger horror film buffs are more liable to use any kind of internet review system than older viewers, and honestly, there are few left who saw the original Frankenstein in a theater. So there's no getting around the fact that newer movies will rank higher. Jordan Peele has two films in the top ten. Then again, you might say that movies just got better over time.

The list of the top 200 best horror films starts at #200 and you'll have to scroll a bit to get to the very best ones. Each comes with a synopsis. You may find something new to watch this Halloween! There are also links to lists of the top horror films of each decade. -via Mental Floss

Can you believe it? The movie Halloween Kills has been in theaters for eleven days now, and we've already got an Honest Trailer. I guess Screen Junkies wanted to give us a thrill in time for Halloween. This is only possible now that paid streaming and theatrical runs are simultaneous. Let me guess- it's about Jamie Lee Curtis being menaced by and ultimately defeating a masked serial killer named Michael Myers. Since this is the 12th Halloween movie, that's a safe bet. The Honest Trailer finds all the plot holes and stupidity in Halloween Kills, but can't decide if this is an intentional parody or just a lazy retread of a 40-year-old story that worked once upon a time.

Warren Bayley owned the Hacienda, a family-style resort in las Vegas, that had a hard time competing with the big casinos with flashy shows. He needed a promotion. Slot machine repairman Bob Timm, who was also a pilot, suggested they break a world record. Pilots had been setting endurance records for decades by the 1950s, and the longest time a plane had stayed in flight was 46 days. Even approaching that limit could fill a lot of room-nights and make the Hacienda a household name.

So Timm bought a used Cessna and altered it for an endurance flight, which began on December 4, 1958, with Timm and John Wayne Cook piloting. Now, a small plane flying for days would need to refuel without landing, and they did not have the Air Force to fly in with a hose. So the fuel came from a truck going as fast as it could while the plane flew low and as slow as it possibly could without stalling. Filling the plane's tanks took about three miles of synchronized travel, and they had to do it every 12 hours. And the world record was 50 days by then.

A lot can go wrong in 50 days. The autopilot feature saved their lives once when Cook fell asleep, but then quit working a few days later. Then the electrical generator quit, making nighttime refueling more hazardous without lights. Other parts of the plane failed as they reached their maintenance limit, and there were quite a few close calls. When the specially-designed fuel truck broke down, they used a T-bird with gas cans to refuel.

Despite all the problems, the Cessna broke the record and added another two weeks! Read about the amazing small plane that finally landed on a wing and a prayer at Damn Interesting. You can also listen to the story in podcast form.

Alexander Keith Jr. of Halifax, Nova Scotia, led a short but eventful life that shortened the lives of many others. Keith started his criminal career by selling gunpowder for his uncle, but making an extra profit by cutting it with lesser material. His first bombing is assumed to have been an attempt to destroy the evidence. This appeared to be the inspiration for several different later crimes. When the US Civil War broke out, Keith fell in with Confederate spies who operated out of Canada.

Keith's crimes included spying, firebombing, arms smuggling, counterfeiting, hijacking, murder, attempted germ warfare, theft, arson, and insurance fraud. Some these crimes were committed against the Union, others against the Confederacy. It didn't matter as long as Keith could profit somehow. His final bombing was well after the war, in which between 40 and 80 people were killed in Germany, all so that Keith could collect an insurance settlement. In doing so, he became a pioneer of what would come to known as the time bomb. Read the story of Alexander Keith Jr. at Cracked.

In 2014, Dylan got an internship at an engineering firm in Santa Clarita, California. The view from his office included Six Flags Magic Mountain. He looked up the price of admission, and found a deal for a year-round unlimited pass for just $150. The kicker is that the deal included free parking and two meals a day! He jumped on that. Since his office was so close, he would pop into the park for lunch every day, and then again for supper on his way home. He would also occasionally enjoy one of the thrill rides. He did this every day for a year, which puts his cost per meal at less than 25 cents.

Dylan did the same thing the next year, and the next. You might think that someone would get fat or put their health at risk by eating that much theme park food, but you can't argue with saving money. Dylan was able to pay off his student loans, get married, and buy a house! He's still eating at the park by purchasing the year-round pass, which is still available even though the menu has expanded greatly. He doesn't eat there twice every day anymore, so he figures he's spent around 50 cents a meal over the years. What did he eat in all that time? Dylan explains his gastronomic adventures at Six Flags at Mel magazine.  -via Digg

(Image credit: Jeremy Thompson)

Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem perform the 1977 hit song by Electric Light Orchestra for the Dear Earth special that premiered Saturday. In this video, Zoot gets the vocal honors, and even uses a talk box to recreate the original sound. The band is joined by a field of flowers, which would sound weird if this were anyone else but the Muppets. -via Boing Boing 

An obscure scholar decodes some hints from the Bible and believes he's discovered the location of Solomon's treasure and the Ark of the Covenant. He assembles a diverse crew from various nations, people who have varied goals such as knowledge, fame, fortune, adventure, and the hand of a beautiful woman. They set off to Jerusalem, which was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire at the time. Through bribes, they obtain permits to dig for artifacts. Eventually, they begin to dig underneath an extremely sacred site- the Dome of the Rock, built over the site of the Hebrew Temple of Jerusalem. As their permit is about to expire, they get careless, and are spotted by outraged Muslims. They escape, leaving an international incident in their wake.

You might recognize the story as very close to the plot of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. There are differences: no Nazis were there in 1909, they did not find the Ark, and the story is completely true. The expedition was led by Captain Montagu Brownlow Parker of Britain, and you can read about the secret excavation of Jerusalem at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: pop culture geek)

You've read about the Japanese delicacy fugu, which is a pufferfish or blowfish that contains deadly toxins. Why would anyone want to eat that? Those who know say it's quite delicious. Chefs who prepare fugu must be certified after years of training in butchering the fish, to avoid serving the poisonous parts along with the flesh that is relatively toxin-free. That makes us curious about which parts are which. Now you can learn those parts with the 3D Fugu Japanese Blowfish Dissection Puzzle.

The plastic fish comes in 34 parts that you can take apart and reassemble. The toxic organs are red, marked with a skull. While playing with the toy does not qualify you to prepare fugu, it comes with a kawaii certificate you can award yourself when you successfully dissect and reassemble the fish. See more of the fugu puzzle at Book of Joe. -via Nag on the Lake

(Top image credit: Flickr user jim)

Filmmakers Michael Reich and Mike Pinkney use marionettes to illustrate the dangers of driving while high. A Puff Before Dying is a spoof of road-safety PSAs, in which three teenage girls head to a party and smoke marijuana. They hallucinate some really cool stuff, but before long we find out how easy it is to portray graphic carnage with puppets.  

While it is satire, this film is listed as a PSA at the National Road Safety Foundation website. It made the rounds of summer film festivals before landing in classrooms. Read more about A Puff Before Dying at Short of the Week.

Consider where James Bond, agent 007, has been. His occupation as a secret agent for MI6 takes him to exotic locations all over the world, often at the drop of a hat. We plebeians know that international travel takes extensive planning, often including health checks and vaccines to obtain visas and tips for avoiding illness. Bond doesn't have time for any of that.

A scientific paper in the journal Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease takes an in-depth look at the dangers Bond confronts as he travels the world, kills people, and beds numerous women. The evidence is gleaned from 25 Eon-produced films from 1962 to 2021, in which Bond goes to 47 identifiable countries on 86 trips. They consider food safety, sexual health, airborne diseases, arthropod-borne diseases, and tropical diseases. From the introduction:

We uncovered above-average sexual activity, often without sufficient time for an exchange of sexual history, with a remarkably high mortality among Bond's sexual partners (27.1; 95% confidence interval 16.4–40.3). Given how inopportune a bout of diarrhea would be in the midst of world-saving action, it is striking that Bond is seen washing his hands on only two occasions, despite numerous exposures to foodborne pathogens. We hypothesize that his foolhardy courage, sometimes purposefully eliciting life-threatening situations, might even be a consequence of Toxoplasmosis. Bond's approach to vector-borne diseases and neglected tropical diseases is erratic, sometimes following travel advice to the letter, but more often dwelling on the side of complete ignorance. Given the limited time Bond receives to prepare for missions, we urgently ask his employer MI6 to take its responsibility seriously. We only live once.

The three authors of the paper "wasted their evening hours examining the films" which totaled 3113 minutes per author. You can read the entire paper at ScienceDirect. -via Metafilter 

Look at these monster s'mores! Sure they are cute, and you can tell just by looking that they are extremely sweet, too. They're made with cut-up marshmallows, heated up in the oven. The pupils are chocolate chips.

You might have thought that s'mores were a campfire treat, since the marshmallows must be properly toasted. My youngest kid started toasting them over the gas stove with a wire coat hanger as soon as we put out the bonfire when she got her first taste of them. In the case of these monster s'mores, they are toasted in a broiler oven to make sure they don't wander off their chocolate bed.

Click to the right on the above image to get the full instructions for these Halloween treats by Jodi Levine for the New York Times. The messiest part would be cutting the marshmallows with kitchen shears, but compared to the mess of eating s'mores made around a campfire, that's nothing.  -via Everlasting Blort

Communities on the island of La Palma in the Canary Islands have been evacuated one by one as lava flowing from a volcanic eruption engulfs them. Small drones have been recording the carnage. One such surveillance flight revealed that four dogs were left behind at a home in an evacuated area. Confined to a fenced-in area, they looked to be starving. Drones were sent in to drop food and water, but the situation looked hopeless for the canines. An animal rights group looked into the possibility of rescue, but there was no way to approach the home. So they turned to Aerocamaras, a company that uses large drones that can carry up to 50 pounds per flight. It was an ambitious plan, using remote-control nets to capture the dogs and airlift them, and it had never been done before.

However, when the Aerocamaras drones set off to get the dogs, they found none! Who had taken the dogs, and how did they get there? The rescuers had left a note on a large banner, but the drone operators did not see it as the wind had blown the fabric over. The note was revealed in a video that was posted to YouTube yesterday. It showed the banner at the house, a message spray painted in red indicating that the dogs had been rescued by "The A Team." The theme music from the '80s TV series was used in the video. The animal advocacy group that enlisted Aerocamaras received a message along with the video, thanking them for their efforts. There's no word yet on who the A team is, how they did it, or where the dogs are, but the pets are no longer surrounded by lava. Read the story and see the video at NPR. -via Digg

When you're a little kid, there's nothing scarier than thinking about what might be under your bed, or who's watching you from the closet. Then you get a little older and the scariest things are xenomorphs and serial killers in masks. But it's when you become an adult and in charge that you really find out what's scary. They are the things that really happen and you can't just get rid of them by turning off the TV or going to sleep. You have to deal with them, and that's what's terrifying. The Holderness Family sings about what's truly scary, and those things are not anything to do with Halloween. -via Geeks Are Sexy

The legend of the werewolf, a man who changes into a wolf, goes way back in European history. However, in Africa there are similar old tales of men who turn into hyenas, and in Asia of men who turn into leopards. What could be behind those stories? It may be a confluence of several exceptional circumstances that bled into each other with time and retelling.

There is a form of mental illness called lycanthropy, in which a person is convinced that they change into an animal. This delusion may be exacerbated by the use of drugs like belladonna.

True serial killers, like Peter Stumpp in 1589, may use the story of turning into a wolf as an explanation of his behavior, or a confession under torture.

As is suspected in some tales, a gang of men would dress as animals to terrorize people to exert control over them.

While not causing murderous rampages, there are medical conditions like hypertrichosis and porphyria that can cause one to appear more like a wild animal, making the idea of a hybrid or transformation more plausible.

And in all those places and eras, there were actual wild predators who occasionally developed a taste for human flesh, or became unafraid to attack due to rabies. When livestock and even children are ripped apart by a wild animal, the terror that follows can easily be blamed on supernatural forces.      

When these various stories were retold over generations, the myth of a bloodthirsty man-wolf was an easy way to cover them all. Read more about the many possible contributions to the werewolf myth at the Daily Grail. -via Strange Company

WAT IS JOUW TRIGGER OM IN CAPS TE GAAN TYPEN? #CAPSLOCKDAY pic.twitter.com/X0z6ukCJBD

— Dynasty (@Dynasty_nl) October 22, 2021

INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY IS CELEBRATED EVERY OCTOBER 22, but -and this is important-  that doesn't mean you have to use it. The caps lock button on your keyboard is there to, well, no one is really sure what it's supposed to be for, but some internet users keep it on all the time. The holiday was invented in 2000, when millions of people were starting to use the internet to communicate, even though they were not typists. Many of them decided it was easier to type everything in upper case than it was to switch back and forth between upper case and lower case to create sentences. In other words, it was a shortcut to reduce errors. However, the effect on the reader was that they were being shouted at.

Times have changed, and as a new generation has grown up with internet technology, you are more likely to encounter textspeak or a barrage of acronyms than uppercase messages. Some people still use all caps in order to emphasize how important their message is -which is akin to actual deliberate shouting. Others just cannot give up the habit because they don't want to deal with a shift key. But we still observe International Caps Lock Day for the fun of it. In fact, it comes around twice a year, the other holiday being on June 28. Metafilter, as always, is making a field day of it.

Read the history and significance of International Caps Lock Day at the Caps Lock Day website. Be assured that the website is not in all caps.