Month: November 2016

The mantis shrimp is an interesting creature: It flaunts a whole rainbow of colors, has some of the best working eyes in the animal kingdom, and ruthlessly kills its prey with extreme precision and power. There are over 550 species of the ocean dweller, but of those hundreds, the formidable crustaceans have just two primary methods for maiming their prey: smashing or spearing.

As PBS’s Deep Look series explains in the video above, smashers have a strong club, which they use to literally punch animals to death (or bust open a shell). Their tiny boxing glove moves through the water at 50 mph—faster than a .22-caliber bullet. These clobberers also have a simple spear that’s sharp enough to jab their enemies in turf battles, but pro spearers have an advanced harpoon with a serrated blade. They hide in the sand and wait for an unsuspecting fish to pass by so they can leap out and attack before dragging the unsuspecting animal to its death. Yikes.

The mantis shrimp combines this pure power with an incredible sense of sight. While humans have two pupils and three color receptors, the mantis shrimp has six pseudopupils and 12 receptors to better destroy their enemies. As the video explains, “Mantis shrimp can perceive the most elusive attribute of light from the human standpoint: polarization. Polarization refers to the angle that light travels through space. Though it’s invisible to the human eye, many animals see this quality of light, especially underwater.”

This skill is great for more than just killing dinner: The special vision lets mantis shrimp communicate with each other and stake out territory. Scientists have even borrowed this technique to find injuries and even cancer with polarized light. Just another example of how Mother Nature can be both beautiful and terrifying. 

[h/t SPLOID]

Images: iStock

Cats love playing with tinsel and tissue paper, but discarded wrapping materials shouldn’t be their only holiday goodies. This season, treat your favorite feline to one of these 11 creative gift ideas.

1. DJ CAT SCRATCHING PAD; $35

This DJ Cat Scratching Pad lets your kitty channel its inner disc jockey while giving its claws a workout. It comes with a record-shaped corrugated cardboard pad, which sits atop a mock record player plastered with old-school-inspired band stickers. And if you’re up for a silent jam session with your pet, the cardboard “record” spins, and the record player’s tone arm is posable. (For easy assembly, the Scratching Pad arrives in a flatpack, and comes with instructions detailing how to fold it together sans glue.)

Find it: Uncommon Goods

2. GRASS PATCH HUNTING BOX CAT REST AND TOY PLAY BOX; $20

Inside every cat beats the heart of a hunter. If your kitty’s an indoor pet, you can arouse its natural instincts with the Grass Patch Hunting Box. It’s filled with tiny jingle balls, which felines can swat and chase by sticking their paws inside peek-a-boo openings on the box’s top and sides. To give your cat a taste of the great outdoors, the box’s top is covered in faux grass that’s suitable for either scratching or lounging.

Find it: Amazon

3. CATIT FLOWER FOUNTAIN; $30

This bubbling, flower-shaped water fountain keeps your cat’s water as fresh as a daisy. A water-softening filter is hidden inside the fountain, along with a re-circulating system that keeps clean liquid flowing. Since every cat drinks at a different speed, it comes with three water flow settings.

Find it: Amazon

4. CATNIP FORTUNE COOKIES; $24

Cats prefer tuna to Chinese food, but they may want to give these catnip-stuffed fleece fortune cookies a nibble. Each hand-sewn cookie is filled with organic, farm-fresh ‘nip and features a randomly chosen cat-themed fortune. (Example: “Your litter box will always be clean.”) The toys come in sets of four, and arrive inside a Chinese take-out carton.

Find it: Uncommon Goods

5. KITNIPBOX; $19-29 PER MONTH (15 PERCENT OFF WITH THE CODE “MENTALPAWS”)

KitNipBox is a monthly subscription box for cat owners looking to spoil their fuzzy friends on the regular. It sends customers a curated package of healthy cat treats, toys, accessories, and other goodies—and if you own two kitties, you can opt for a multi-cat box that includes even more feline swag. A portion of KitNipBox’s monthly fee is donated to animal welfare organizations, so your purchase also helps less-fortunate cats.

Find it: KitNipBox

6. PETCUBE PLAY; $199

If you’ve ever wondered what your cat does when you’re not around, the Petcube Camera will help solve the mystery. The Wi-Fi-enabled video camera connects with your smartphone via a website or app, letting you check in with your pet when you’re on the go. And if you’re really missing your kitty, a two-way audio feature and an interactive laser toy allow for long-distance bonding sessions.

Find it: Amazon

7. HEPPER CAT POD BED; $130

This lofted, pod-shaped cat bed is crafted from fabric-covered foam, and its reversible liner—sewn from microfiber and sherpa fleece—is machine-washable (perfect for removing cat fur). The bed’s top is also removable, allowing you to transform it into a hammock-shaped lounger. If your pet ends up preferring discarded boxes to beds, you can return the pod and receive a full refund.

Find It: Amazon

8. MUSIC FOR CATS; $15-25

Typically, felines don’t like music, as it often features pitches and tempos enjoyed only by humans. However, they might dig Music for Cats, an album created by composer David Teie and a team of animal scientists. According to Teie’s website, the 40-minute CD is “based on feline vocal communication and environmental sounds that pique the interest of cats.” You can purchase a single album for $20; a digital download for $15; or a four-CD version of the album for $25. (It features silence between the songs, so you can play it for your cats for extended periods of time while you’re away.)

Find it: Music for Cats

9. PETSAFE POUNCE TOY; $28

Hunting mice is all about the chase. Pounce features an electronic mouse that races around a circular track, providing your cat with a heart-pounding pursuit. Just like a real rodent, the mouse is unpredictable: It twitches, zooms, hides, and changes direction. Pounce is also suitable for all feline ages: The toy offers four speed settings, including high and medium for active cats, and low or variable for older, less-agile ones.

Find it: Amazon

10. VESPER CAT FURNITURE; $108

Feline furniture can be stylish, too. This sleek, modern cat tree features a cube cave, two platforms lined with memory foam cushions, and a dangling toy.

Find it: Amazon

11. FROSTED DONUTS WITH SPRINKLES GIFT SET ORGANIC CATNIP CAT TOY; $29

Your cats might like playing with these doughnut-shaped, catnip-stuffed toys almost as much as you enjoy eating the real thing. The eco-friendly felt toys are sold in sets of three—chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry—and come with fake “Nutrition Facts” that tell you how many “Meows of Fun” and “Total Purrs” are in every bite.

Find it: Etsy

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The Harry Potter Movie Series That Could Have Been. Early ideas that were scrapped would have made the movies very different.
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Hayao Miyazaki comes out of retirement to make a new feature film. The 12-minute short Boro the Caterpillar should be a full-length movie by 2019.
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Living with Coyotes in New York City. They could have been relocated, but were killed instead.
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10 Historical Words That Don’t Mean What You Think. Or at least they didn’t mean that when they were first coined.  
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How America’s elections are ruining America. Twenty-two months of campaigning burned us all out.
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Messing with Mother Nature: 5 Cautionary Tales. The unintended consequences of human intervention can wreck the delicate balance of nature.

Winter is coming—and with it, the Blu-ray and DVD release of Game of Thrones: The Complete Sixth Season. The box sets were officially released yesterday, and to mark the occasion, HBO is hosting an upcoming series of interactive Game of Thrones-themed events in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

Game of Thrones: Season 6—Behind the Scenes will swing by Astor Place in New York City on Friday, November 18, and Saturday, November 19. Next week, it will travel to Chicago’s Grant Park, and in December it will arrive at Hollywood & Highland in Los Angeles.

The promotional event will offer five different fan experiences, each pegged to a single bonus feature included on the new Blu-ray and DVD sets. Fans can hone their battle skills in a virtual reality “Battle Training” in Castle Black’s courtyard; step inside memorable scenes from the show, like “The Battle of the Bastards” and “Hold the Door”; stand inside a burning of the Temple of the Dosh Khaleen, courtesy of green screen technology; get a behind-the-scenes look at how the show’s visual effects are created; and view an assortment of Game of Thrones costumes and props (yes, you can even sit on the Iron Throne).

You can pre-register for Game of Thrones: Season 6 – Behind the Scenes by visiting GoTBehindtheScenes.com. If you purchased Season 6 on Blu-ray or DVD, you can bring the box set with you and gain early access.

Composer James Plakovic’s scores aren’t just created to sound beautiful; on paper, they also take the shape of people, symbols, objects, or in some cases, world maps. His “World Beat Music,” spotted by Boing Boing, is a score that looks like a Mercator Projection map of the world. “What if you could make the world more harmonious through music,” Plakovic asks in the video above. “How would it sound?” Take a listen to the aural cartography and find out for yourself.

[h/t Boing Boing]

Teaser image courtesy iStock

Banner image courtesy of iStock.

Erik Sass is covering the events of the war exactly 100 years after they happened. This is the 257th installment in the series.   

November 15, 1916: British Advance Into Sinai 

Fighting in the Sinai Peninsula in 1914-1916 was unusual by the standards of the First World War, in large part because – unlike the nose-to-nose stalemate on the Western Front – the two opposing sides were separated by a “no man’s land” consisting of an inhospitable desert stretching hundreds of miles. Although both sides staged raids and larger attacks in this huge arena with scant success, in between these encounters ordinary troops might not see the enemy for months at a time.

This situation finally began to change – albeit very slowly– on November 15, 1916, when the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force under commander-in-chief Archibald Murray made its first foray into the desert with an eye to permanent occupation, rather than reconnaissance or harassing raids. Above all, the long delay in the British offensive reflected the enormous logistical difficulties attending modern desert warfare. 

The first and most challenging obstacle was also the simplest: water. With the British planning to bring a force numbering hundreds of thousands of men across the desert, the small brackish wells scattered across the Sinai Peninsula for use by Bedouin tribes were obviously going to be totally inadequate. The British decided to overcome the obstacle by building a pipeline to carry water from a base near the Suez Canal, at Qantara, across the northern Mediterranean coast of the peninsula to Palestine. 

The pipeline, and an accompanying railroad (top), were the main target of the failed Turkish campaign against the British in front of the Suez Canal at Romani in August 1916. That fall the pipeline and railroad continued to advance east, while the British received additional valuable information from Jewish Zionists who knew the terrain in Palestine, including the location of wells for when the invaders were forced to leave their pipeline behind.

In mid-November the British began their gradual pursuit of the Turkish force they’d first defeated at Romani, which had now retreated to a position at Bir Lahfan, leading to another British victory at El Arish in late December 1916 and Rafah in January 1917. But here, as in Mesopotamia, anyone expecting a colonial walkover was in for a surprise: following these early successes, Turkish resistance mounted once the British arrived in Palestine, stiffened by German officers and the prospect of a threat to the empire’s core territories. 

For ordinary British soldiers, the slow advance across the Sinai alternated with long periods of tedium, broken up by occasional leave to Cairo or Alexandria as well as a grudging appreciation of the desert’s natural beauty. Oskar Teichman, a junior medical officer serving with the British Army in Egypt, recalled the dramatic natural setting near the Suez Canal in early November: 

The landscape was grand and austere; the enormous vista of endless desert, here and there interrupted by gigantic sand mountains – fashioned into fantastic shapes according to the caprices of the wind – and by occasional palm-studded Hods nestling in tiny valleys, was most impressive. In this clear atmosphere the visibility was wonderful. Perfect silence reigned, and there appeared to be no sign of life except an occasional vulture hovering over the old Turkish battle-field or a jackal slinking homewards to his laid. At sunset the sky assumed most marvellous colours, which it is useless to try to describe. Then followed the deathly stillness of the desert night…

On the other side, conditions were already dire for Ottoman citizens living in Palestine, thanks to growing shortages of food, fuel, medicine, and other necessities. These were further underlined by disparities in the rations provided to German soldiers and officers, versus ordinary Turkish soldiers and civilians, according to the Conde de Ballobar, a Spanish diplomat who found himself acting as caretaker for Allied interests in Ottoman Palestine. On November 17, 1916 he wrote in his diary: 

Truly the contrast is notable in this Austrian-German-Turkish entente. The Teutons and Austrians live the life of princes: Sanatoriums, hospitals magnificently equipped, automobiles, economical restaurants, great free warehouses, very well stocked, while the Turks do not even have shoes, eat almost nothing and are lodged and cared for any old way. 

Lawrence Meets Faisal 

Hundreds of miles to the southeast developments marked the beginning of the end of Ottoman rule in the Hejaz, the west central coast of the Arabian Peninsula, home to the two holy cities of Islam, Mecca and Medina, as well as the port of Jiddah. Here, in late October 1916 the British intelligence officer T.E. Lawrence finally met Prince Faisal, the son of Sharif Hussein bin Ali, the feudal ruler of Mecca who rose up against the Turks in June of that year.

Hussein had declared himself “King of the Arab Countries,” but as Lawrence already understood he would mostly be a figurehead for the Arab Revolt, which still needed a dynamic political and diplomatic leader. On meeting Hussein’s third son at a walled compound at Wadi Safra, nestled in a valley full of palm groves, Lawrence decided he had found a true revolutionary statesman.

Lawrence later recalled their first meeting, introduced by one of Faisal’s many retainers, in typically dramatic (not to say mystical) fashion: 

He led me through a second gate into an inner court, and across it I saw standing framed between the posts of a black doorway, a white figure waiting tensely for me. This was Feisal, and I felt at the glance that now I had found the man whom I had come to Arabia to seek, the leader alone needed to make the Arab Revolt win through to success. He looked very tall and pillar-like, very slender, dressed in long white robes and a brown head cloth with a brilliant scarlet and gold cord… His hands were loosely crossed in front of him on his dagger. 

Faisal would eventually prove a great leader, as Lawrence guessed – but for now the Arab Revolt was in its infancy, and the Turks felt they had little to fear from a disorganized band of Bedouin outlaws. Lawrence would have to do something to get their attention. 

See the previous installment or all entries.

After 45 years overseeing his entertainment empire from the comfortable confines of the opulent Playboy Mansion, Hugh Hefner has become a tenant. Last August, the 90-year-old founder of Playboy magazine sold the property via his Playboy Enterprises to private equity investor Daren Metropoulos for $100 million, with the caveat that Hefner can lease it for $1 million a month.

Metropoulos—whose firm owns the Hostess snack company—is buying more than just a 29-room luxury residence. Throughout the decades, the Mansion has been seen as the ultimate destination for decadence and sexualized socializing. Check out 15 facts about its history, the secret tunnels built for celebrities, and why Mike Tyson won’t be attending movie night anytime soon.

1. IT WASN’T THE FIRST PLAYBOY COMPOUND.

When Hugh Hefner produced the first issue of Playboy in 1953, he toiled from a kitchen table in a small Chicago apartment. By 1959, the magazine had become so successful that he was able to take over a Chicago mansion, outfitting it with an indoor basement pool and a bedroom-slash-office with a 100-inch diameter bed; Playboy models and nightclub employees could rent rooms on the third and fourth floors for $50 a month. (No male visitors were allowed.)

After buying the real estate where he built the Los Angeles mansion for $1 million in 1971, Hefner shuttled between both before making a permanent move to the West Coast in 1974. After stints as an art school and student dorm, the Chicago building was converted to a seven-unit condominium in 1993.

2. CELEBRITIES USED SECRET TUNNELS FOR VISITS.

The 1970s saw a number of celebrities use the Mansion for decathlons of decadence, but not everyone wanted to be seen coming and going. According to Playboy.com, Polaroids and blueprints were discovered in 2015 detailing an underground network of tunnels running from the property to the homes of famous guests like Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and James Caan. It’s believed the tunnels were closed in 1989, the year of Hefner’s marriage to Playmate Kimberley Conrad.

3. JOHN LENNON ONCE ASSAULTED A PAINTING THERE.

The Mansion doubles as an impressive art gallery for art aficionado Hefner, but one former Beatle wasn’t too appreciative. During a visit to the Mansion in the 1970s, John Lennon allegedly became a little belligerent and extinguished his cigarette into a work by Henri Matisse. Hefner restored the illustration; Lennon was presumably allowed to continue visiting.

4. IT HAS ITS OWN PET CEMETERY.

With both its own zoo license and dozens of pets roaming the Mansion over the years, Hefner thought it would make sense to keep a resting place for animals on the grounds. Many of Hefner’s personal canines have been buried there; so have many of the Mansion’s several monkeys and 50-plus varieties of birds. One tombstone reads, “Teri, Beloved Woolly Monkey.”

5. THE PLACE IS BOOBY-TRAPPED.

In his autobiography, The Unusual Suspect, actor Stephen Baldwin recalled the time that he and Robert Downey, Jr. descended a spiral staircase to hang out with Playmates and possibly indulge in semi-legal substances in the wine cellar. When Downey reached the third-to-last step, he turned to Baldwin and told him not to step on it because it would trigger a silent alarm. The feature might have been a holdover from 1927, when the cellar was in use as a boozy storage room during Prohibition.

6. LUKE WILSON WAS BANNED FROM THE PREMISES.

Actor Luke Wilson admitted to press in 2006 that some modest misdirection while talking to Mansion staff got him “DNAed”—tagged with a Do Not Admit label. Wilson said a Mansion employee asked who he was with one night and Wilson lied by saying it was his brother, Owen: It was actually a friend. Wilson was denied entry for 18 months before he groveled and was allowed back in.

7. SOMETIMES GUESTS WOULD JUST MOVE IN.

The amenities of the Mansion were such that several of Hefner’s guests over the years considered it a staycation. James Caan moved in for a bit in the 1970s; so did Shel Silverstein and Tony Curtis.

8. IT’S HOSTED BOXING EVENTS.

Hefner has opened up the Mansion several times to host professional boxing and mixed martial arts events. Boxers like David Haye, who were accustomed to fighting in front of large Las Vegas crowds, found it slightly disarming to compete in front of just a few hundred spectators, many of them celebrities; Hefner thumbed his nose at women competing, telling The Guardian in 2003 that he had “mixed” emotions about females fighting.

9. HEFNER HAS AN IN-HOUSE BIOGRAPHER.

Chronicling the many seminal moments in Hefner’s life is the duty of Steve Martinez, a full-time archivist who painstakingly updates and maintains the nearly 3000 volumes of scrapbooks kept in the Mansion’s library. Martinez collects photos and information during the week; on weekends, he and Hefner update the books. The volumes begin with portraits of Hefner at six months; the subject has left instructions that the final volumes be filled with his obituaries.

10. THE GROTTO ONCE MADE PEOPLE REALLY SICK.

Hefner has had to endure many jokes over the years about the alleged petri dish that is the grotto, the Mansion’s man-made cave that includes a whirlpool. In April 2011, it stopped being funny: 123 people who visited the attraction over a weekend for a fundraiser became ill, with health officials identifying the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease in the water. Symptoms included fever, headache, cough, and other flu-like ailments.

11. IT EMPLOYS OVER 80 STAFF MEMBERS.

With 21,000 square feet to attend to, there’s no skeleton crew: Playboy employs over 80 full-time workers to tend to the grounds, cook, provide security, and maintain electrical and plumbing services.

12. MIKE TYSON BROKE MANSION RULES.

Hefner takes the Mansion’s regularly-scheduled movie nights very seriously. A lifetime film buff, he has a board of friends curate titles for screenings and has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to disruptions during their running times. Once, Mike Tyson was invited to attend a film. After sinking into a leather couch, he fell asleep, ignoring his phone that kept ringing incessantly. It was Tyson’s first and last invitation to the movies.

13. GUESTS ARE GREETED BY FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER.

Visitors bearing an invitation to the Mansion are brought through iron gates to the entrance, where they announce their presence to a giant rock housing an intercom system. Once inside, guests idle for a bit in the Great Room, a foyer containing several portraits of Hefner and a giant statue of Frankenstein’s monster.

14. HEFNER HAS A CARDBOARD STAND-IN.

When a dinner gathering or party is in full swing and Hefner can’t attend, a life-size cardboard cut-out of him can usually be seen looming over the proceedings.

15. LARRY FLYNT ALMOST BOUGHT IT.

Free speech advocate/Hustler founder Larry Flynt expressed interest in buying the Mansion early in 2016, with plans to convert it into the “Hustler Mansion.” While it’s not known whether a formal offer was ever made, Flynt conveyed through associate Harry Mohney that Hefner would not be welcome to remain. As it stands, Hefner’s deal includes being able to remain in residence until his death.

All images courtesy of Getty Images.

Families often use the holidays as an excuse to indulge in repeat viewings of Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Elf. But for a certain section of the population, the yuletide is all about horror. Although it didn’t truly emerge until the mid-1970s, “holiday horror” is a thriving subgenre that often combines comedy to tell stories of demented Saint Nicks and lethal gingerbread men. If you’ve never seen Santa slash someone, here are 15 movies to get you started.

1. THANKSKILLING (2009)

Most holiday horror movies concern Christmas, so ThanksKilling is a bit of an anomaly. Another reason it’s an anomaly? It opens in 1621, with an axe-wielding turkey murdering a topless pilgrim woman. The movie continues on to the present-day, where a group of college friends are terrorized by that same demon bird during Thanksgiving break. It’s pretty schlocky, but if Turkey Day-themed terror is your bag, make sure to check out the sequel: ThanksKilling 3. (No one really knows what happened to ThanksKilling 2.)

2. BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974)

Fittingly, the same man who brought us A Christmas Story also brought us its twisted cousin. Before Bob Clark co-wrote and directed the 1983 saga of Ralphie Parker, he helmed Black Christmas. It concerns a group of sorority sisters who are systematically picked off by a man who keeps making threatening phone calls to their house. Oh, and it all happens during the holidays. Black Christmas is often considered the godfather of holiday horror, but it was also pretty early on the slasher scene, too. It opened the same year as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and beat Halloween by a full four years.

3. SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984)

This movie isn’t about Santa Claus himself going berserk and slaughtering a bunch of people. But it is about a troubled teen who does just that in a Santa suit. Billy Chapman starts Silent Night, Deadly Night as a happy little kid, only to witness a man dressed as St. Nick murder his parents in cold blood. Years later, after he has grown up and gotten a job at a toy store, he conducts a killing spree in his own red-and-white suit. The PTA and plenty of critics condemned the film for demonizing a kiddie icon, but it turned into a bona fide franchise with four sequels and a 2012 remake.

4. RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE (2010)

This Finnish flick dismantles Santa lore in truly bizarre fashion, and it’s not easy to explain in a quick plot summary. But Rare Exports involves a small community living at the base of Korvatunturi mountain, a major excavation project, a bunch of dead reindeer, and a creepy old naked dude who may or may not be Santa Claus. Thanks to its snowy backdrop, the movie scored some comparisons to The Thing, but the hero here isn’t some Kurt Russell clone with equally feathered hair. It’s a bunch of earnest kids and their skeptical dads, who all want to survive the holidays in one piece.

5. TO ALL A GOODNIGHT (1980)

To All a Goodnight follows a by-now familiar recipe: Add a bunch of young women to one psycho dressed as Santa Claus and you get a healthy dose of murder and this 1980 slasher flick. Only this one takes place at a finishing school. So it’s fancier.

6. KRAMPUS (2015)

Although many Americans are blissfully unaware of him, Krampus has terrorized German-speaking kids for centuries. According to folklore, he’s a yuletide demon who punishes naughty children. (He’s also part-goat.) That’s some solid horror movie material, so naturally Krampus earned his own feature film last year. In the movie, he’s summoned because a large suburban family loses its Christmas cheer. That family has an Austrian grandma who had encounters with Krampus as a kid, so he returns to punish her descendants. He also animates one truly awful Jack-in-the-Box.

7. THE GINGERDEAD MAN (2005)

“Eat me, you punk b*tch!” That’s one of the many corny catchphrases spouted by the Gingerdead Man, an evil cookie possessed by the spirit of a convicted killer (played by Gary Busey). The lesson here, obviously, is to never bake.

8. JACK FROST (1997)

No, this isn’t the Michael Keaton snowman movie. It’s actually a holiday horror movie that beat that family film by a year. In this version, Jack Frost is a serial killer on death row who escapes prison and then, through a freak accident, becomes a snowman. He embarks on a murder spree that’s often played for laughs—for instance, the cops threaten him with hairdryers. But the comedy is pretty questionable in the infamous, and quite controversial, Shannon Elizabeth shower scene.

9. ELVES (1989)

Based on the tagline—“They’re not working for Santa anymore”—you’d assume this is your standard evil elves movie. But Elves weaves Nazis, bathtub electrocutions, and a solitary, super grotesque elf into its utterly absurd plot. Watch at your own risk.

10. SINT (2010)

The Dutch have their own take on Santa, and his name is Sinterklaas. Sinterklaas travels to the Netherlands via steamship each year with his racist sidekick Zwarte Piet. But otherwise, he’s pretty similar to Santa. And if Santa can be evil, so can Sinterklaas. According to the backstory in Sint (or Saint), the townspeople burned their malevolent bishop alive on December 5, 1492. But Sinterklaas returns from the grave on that date whenever there’s a full moon to continue dropping bodies. In keeping with his olden origins, he rides around on a white horse wielding a golden staff … that he can use to murder you.

11. SANTA’S SLAY (2005)

Ever wonder where Santa came from? This horror-comedy claims he comes from the worst possible person: Satan. The devil’s kid lost a bet many years ago and had to pretend to be a jolly gift-giver. But now the terms of the bet are up and he’s out to act like a true demon. That includes killing Fran Drescher and James Caan, obviously.

12. ALL THROUGH THE HOUSE (2015)

Another Santa slasher is on the loose in All Through the House, but the big mystery here is who it is. This villain dons a mask during his/her streak through suburbia—and, as the genre dictates, offs a bunch of promiscuous young couples along the way. The riddle is all tied up in the disappearance of a little girl, who vanished several years earlier.

13. CHRISTMAS EVIL (1980)

Several years before Silent Night, Deadly Night garnered protests for its anti-Kringle stance, Christmas Evil put a radicalized Santa at the center of its story. The movie’s protagonist, Harry Stadling, first starts to get weird thoughts in his head as a kid when he sees “Santa” (really his dad in the costume) groping his mom. Then, he becomes unhealthily obsessed with the holiday season, deludes himself into thinking he’s Santa, and goes on a rampage. The movie is mostly notable for its superfan John Waters, who lent commentary to the DVD and gave Christmas Evil some serious cult cred.

14. SANTA CLAWS (1996)

If you thought this was the holiday version of Pet Sematary, guess again. The culprit here isn’t a demon cat in a Santa hat, but a creepy next-door neighbor. Santa Claws stars B-movie icon Debbie Rochon as Raven Quinn, an actress going through a divorce right in the middle of the holidays. She needs some help caring for her two girls, so she seeks out Wayne, her neighbor who has an obsessive crush on her. He eventually snaps and dresses up as Santa Claus in a ski mask. Mayhem ensues.

15. NEW YEAR’S EVIL (1980)

Because the holidays aren’t over until everyone’s sung “Auld Lang Syne,” we can’t count out New Year’s Eve horror. In New Year’s Evil, lady rocker Blaze is hosting a live NYE show. Everything is going well, until a man calls in promising to kill at midnight. The cops write it off as a prank call, but soon, Blaze’s friends start dropping like flies. Just to tie it all together, the mysterious murderer refers to himself as … “EVIL.”