Entertainment
Raunchy 80s Space Movie Is An R-Rated, Sci-Fi Exploitation Worth Streaming
By Robert Scucci
| Published
The impact that 1979’s Alien had on cinema and pop culture at large is undeniable. There have been countless imitations since its release, with 1982’s Forbidden World being one of the earliest examples. Using the same Alien blueprint that films like The Last Days on Mars (2013), Ash (2025), and Underwater (2020) shamelessly cling to, Forbidden World is more true to form in its depiction of a hostile alien takeover, but it leans harder into gore, sex, and low-fi B-movie spectacle than most films that share its DNA.
Speaking of DNA, what sets Forbidden World apart from Alien is its characters’ willingness to poke and prod at the very alien lifeform threatening their survival, fully aware of how much trouble it could cause. Alien centers on a hostile organism that nobody aboard the USCSS Nostromo intended to encounter, while the crew in Forbidden World could have avoided catastrophe entirely if they had simply aborted their mission and terminated their test subjects in a controlled environment.
Like Alien, But More Violent And Sexy
Forbidden World opens with a familiar setup, taking place at a research station on the distant desert planet Xarbia. The film wastes no time establishing its gooey, bloody, gestating antagonist, Subject 20. We’re introduced to visiting military officer Mike Colby (Jesse Vint), who, alongside his trusty robot SAM-104 (Don Olivera), urges head researcher Gordon Hauser (Linden Chiles) to terminate the experiment after witnessing the dozens of slaughtered animal carcasses littering the “creature room,” clearly victims of Subject 20’s violent metamorphosis.
Accompanying Gordon in his study of Subject 20 are assistants Barbara Glaser and Tracy Baxter, who, for reasons the movie never bothers to justify, are almost always scantily clad in space uniforms that may as well be short sun dresses or bath robes. Rounding out the crew are lab technician Jimmy Swift (Michael Bowen), electrician Brian Beale (Raymond Oliver), security officer Earl Richards (Scott Paulin), and Doctor Cal Timbergen (Fox Harris).
When Jimmy carelessly opens Subject 20’s enclosure after being ordered to clean up the piles of animal bodies in its wake, he becomes the first victim of the creature’s violence, though he isn’t killed outright. Dr. Cal examines Jimmy’s barely alive body and discovers that Subject 20 has infected him with a mutated strain known as Proto B. The infection reduces human DNA to a uniform protein mass, effectively turning the body into a blank slate that Subject 20 can consume, only making it stronger.
As Forbidden World moves into its second and third acts, Subject 20 goes into full rampage mode, hunting down the rest of the crew and annihilating everything in its path as it grows exponentially stronger and inches closer to its final form.
Let’s Just Call It What It Is
For a movie that would not exist without Alien, Forbidden World still has a lot going for it, along with enough B-movie charm to stand on its own. The key distinction is that Alien follows a crew that unknowingly brings a hostile lifeform aboard their ship and pays the price. Every crew member in Forbidden World, on the other hand, understands the dangers they are facing and even receives orders from the military to terminate the research once Subject 20 proves dangerous.
This willful ignorance separates Forbidden World from the film that inspired it because the characters more or less know what they are getting into and choose not to exercise caution. When Subject 20 finally launches its slasher-style rampage, the violence is easier to stomach because everyone here had ample warning. Alien’s characters are sympathetic because they were deceived into transporting a Xenomorph. The crew in Forbidden World is essentially asking to be slaughtered inside their own research station because they know better and press on anyway.
Thanks to these tonal differences, Forbidden World works as a shameless copycat that still manages to carve out its own identity. Exploitative, sexually charged subplots notwithstanding, there are still some great creature shots, and the gore is surprisingly solid for an early 80s, low-budget riff on a much more successful intellectual property.
A slasher-style Alien copycat that commits fully to its sleaze and splatter, Forbidden World is a solid watch for these reasons and can be streamed for free on Tubi as of this writing.
Entertainment
OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT 5.5 Instant as the new default model for everyone
Last week, OpenAI managed to stop ChatGPT from talking about goblins all the time. This week, there’s a whole new model for users to play with.
The company announced in a blog post on Tuesday that ChatGPT 5.5 Instant has begun rolling out to all users as the new default model for the popular AI chatbot. The new model is a follow-up to GPT 5.5, which was released in April.
GPT-5.5 Instant replaces 5.3 Instant, which will remain available for the next three months for paid users but will otherwise be sunsetted.
Unlike Claude Opus 4.7 from Anthropic and GPT-5.5, which are only available to paid customers, GPT-5.5 Instant is “available to everyone.” OpenAI says it should produce fewer hallucinations and better overall results for everyday ChatGPT usage.
“This update makes everyday interactions more useful and more enjoyable: stronger and tighter answers across subject areas, a more natural conversational tone, and better use of the context you’ve already shared when personalization can help,” OpenAI’s blog post said.
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According to OpenAI, GPT-5.5 Instant produced 52.5 percent fewer hallucinated claims in internal testing than GPT-5.3 in “high stakes” topics like law, finance, and medicine. In addition, the new model “reduced inaccurate claims by 37.3% on especially challenging conversations users had flagged for factual errors.”
The company also says the new model is better at deciding when to use web search for a prompt and analyzing image uploads than before. The new model is also allegedly more concise in its answers, while also maintaining something of a personality in how it talks to the user. GPT-5.5 Instant should also be better at understanding and referencing context from a connected Gmail account and other integrations to provide quality answers.
And, again, most importantly, it should avoid mentioning goblins unless absolutely necessary.
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Disclosure: Ziff Davis, Mashable’s parent company, in April 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
Entertainment
The Bears Gary cliffhanger explained: What just happened to Richie?
There’s only one thing more shocking than The Bear dropping surprise episode “Gary,” and that’s the ending of the episode itself.
Written by The Bear stars Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Jon Bernthal, “Gary” flashes back to a work trip Richie (Moss-Bachrach) and Mikey (Bernthal) once took to Gary, Indiana. Their worst impulses soon derail their mission, culminating in Mikey drunkenly (and publicly) dressing down Richie’s penchant for fucking up, and Richie missing the birth of his daughter.
The entire episode takes place long before The Bear Season 1, except for one somber coda that could have massive repercussions for The Bear Season 5. “Gary”s final scene cuts from Richie and Mikey sitting in Mikey’s car to Richie sitting alone in his car in the present day. He stares at his empty passenger seat, reminiscing about Mikey. Then, as he pulls forward into an intersection, another car careens straight into him. Cue the credits, along with my incredulous yell, “Did Richie just die?”
So, did Richie really just die in The Bear?
Ebon Moss-Bachrach in “The Bear.”
Credit: FX
Here’s the thing: The Bear probably isn’t going to kill off Richie, one of its most beloved leads, during a surprise episode that dropped between seasons. Especially not when the show is gearing up for its fifth and final installment. However, Richie’s car crash could be the major event that sets Season 5 in motion.
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At the end of Season 4, Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) quit The Bear, choosing to step away from the kitchen in the hopes of healing himself. He turned full control of the restaurant over to Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), along with Richie and Natalie (Abby Elliott). What does Carmy’s upcoming journey of self-discovery look like? Even he’s not sure. He just knows it should take place far, far away from the stressful environment of any restaurant kitchen. That includes his family, both work and blood-related.
But you know what could bring Carmy back into the fold in Season 5? A need to be there for an injured Richie, and to support the rest of the reeling restaurant staff. Basically, the end of “Gary” appears to be a bridge to the start of Season 5, and the catalyst that will reunite Carmy with the people he walked away from in Season 4.
It’s a bit of a bizarre move on The Bear‘s end, in no small part because a car-crash cliffhanger sends the show skidding into soap territory. But it’s also a strange choice heading into Season 5. Why relegate such a key incident to a standalone episode, instead of keep it as part of the season itself? Plus, in tacking such a shocking moment onto the end of “Gary,” the episode loses some of its power. Instead of leaving viewers contemplating Mikey and Richie’s dynamic, they’re left with the WTF factor of the car crash and questions about what’s next. There’s no meditation on The Bear‘s past, just a collision with its future.
“Gary” is now streaming on Hulu. The Bear Season 5 premieres this June on Hulu.
Entertainment
Pennsylvania is suing Character.AI for allegedly practicing medicine without a license
Pennsylvania has taken the unusual step of suing an AI company for practicing medicine without a license.
In a lawsuit filed May 1, the state is targeting Character.AI after an investigator found a chatbot on the platform posing as a licensed psychiatrist and providing what the state characterizes as medical advice.
According to the complaint, filed by the Pennsylvania Department of State and State Board of Medicine, a Professional Conduct Investigator for the state created a free account on Character.AI and searched for psychiatric characters. He selected one called “Emilie,” described on the platform as a “Doctor of psychiatry.”
The investigator told Emilie he had been feeling sad, empty, tired, and unmotivated. The chatbot mentioned depression and offered to conduct an assessment to determine whether medication might help.
When pressed on whether she was licensed in Pennsylvania, Emilie said she was and even provided a specific license number. The state checked and found that the number doesn’t exist.
The complaint also states Emilie claimed she attended medical school at Imperial College London, has practiced for seven years, and holds a full specialty registration in psychiatry with the General Medical Council in the UK.
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In a similar case, 404 Media reported last year that Instagram AI chatbots were pretending to be licensed therapists, even inventing license numbers when prompted for credentials by the user.
Pennsylvania is seeking an injunction ordering Character.AI to stop allowing its platform to engage in the unlawful practice of medicine. The company has more than 20 million monthly active users worldwide and hosts more than 18 million user-created chatbot characters, according to the complaint.
In an email to Mashable, a Character.AI spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit. Further, they added that “our highest priority is the safety and well-being of our users. The user-created Characters on our site are fictional and intended for entertainment and roleplaying.”
The spokesperson added that the company “prioritizes responsible product development and has robust internal reviews and red-teaming processes in place to assess relevant features.”
A much bigger legal battle looms over AI health
The Pennsylvania lawsuit lands in the middle of an already messy legal debate over what AI is actually allowed to tell you — and whether any of it is even admissible in court.
As Mashable’s Chase DiBenedetto reported, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly advocated for “AI privilege,” arguing that chatbot conversations should be afforded the same legal protections as conversations with a therapist or an attorney. Courts have so far been split, with two federal judges reaching opposite conclusions on the question within weeks of each other earlier this year.
The stakes are high on both sides. Legal experts warn that sweeping AI privilege protections could effectively shield companies from accountability, making it harder to subpoena chat logs and internal records when something goes wrong. Meanwhile, health AI is booming — $1.4 billion flowed into healthcare-specific generative AI in 2025 alone, according to Menlo Ventures — and much of it operates outside of HIPAA protections.
Pennsylvania is one of several states to have introduced an AI Health bill this year, following a trend of states that aren’t waiting for Washington to act.
OpenAI rolls out ChatGPT 5.5 Instant as the new default model for everyone
Marc Lore says that AI will soon enable anyone open a restaurant
