Entertainment
Serial Killer Recklessly Escalates In A Perfect New Found Footage Sequel
By Robert Scucci
| Published
One of my favorite found footage horror flicks that you’ve never heard of is 2025’s Looky-Loo (my review here), written and directed by Jason Zink (the guy behind Straight Edge Kegger). I was fortunate enough to be contacted by Jason ahead of its release back in 2024 to review the film, and it blew me away. It’s very well shot because the “found footage” comes from an aspiring filmmaker, meaning he knows how to edit his footage, and whatever camera he’s using doesn’t fall into the “scared kids running around the woods with their parents’ camcorder” trap that so many found footage films succumb to.
The footage presented to the viewer in Looky-Loo, as far as I can tell, is carefully curated by the titular serial killer because he’s trying to build out his own mythology and wants the attention. Think BTK killer, but if he knew how to use CapCut. Looky-Loo: Part II builds on this lore and keeps things interesting by showing us just how far off the deep end the killer has gotten since we last saw him. That’s saying a lot because the first film succeeds in traumatizing its audience, but only before hinting that there’s plenty more where that came from.
When Zink reached out to me again to hear my thoughts on his upcoming sequel, I was obviously primed for more of the same, just slightly escalated. He’s working the whole thing into a trilogy, so I figured we’d get a slow burn, leading to another cliffhanger. I was surprised when Looky-Loo: Part II got right into it with zero buildup to prepare you for the continuation of our killer’s rampage.
Looky Loo Wants To Be Famous
Looky-Loo: Part II wastes no time building out the mythology of its titular character and includes a letter to the viewer that spells everything out. The letter accomplishes two things. It tells the viewer that he will continue to kill, and it passive-aggressively taunts the authorities, stating that “so many more ladies ended up on the cutting room floor than the FBI knows about.” He goes on to explain that one such victim was strangled with a guitar string while she sat in her recliner, something he refers to as “Compelling footage, but cut for time.”
Right off the rip, Looky Loo is talking like an accomplished filmmaker who just so happens to be a serial killer, not a serial killer moonlighting as an amateur filmmaker. That should tell you everything you need to know about the murderous menace’s mental state. He thinks very highly of himself, and he believes what he’s doing is high art. In reality, he’s stalking women, entering and snooping around their homes when they’re not around, and returning when he’s comfortable enough with their routines to go in for the kill.
But here’s what Looky Loo doesn’t want to admit. He’s getting sloppy.
In the first film, one thing that really stuck with me was how he used his camera for reconnaissance. At first, it seems like he’s just filming his voyeuristic activities for the thrill of it. But if you really think about what he’s doing, he’s playing things smart. He films very specific things when he goes into a house. You catch glimpses of calendars, he goes through junk drawers and medicine cabinets, looks for potential murder weapons, and comes up with potential escape routes.
He’s also scoping out places to hide once it’s time to strike. He takes the footage home and reviews it so there are no surprises. In other words, he’s sizing up the joint from a safe distance once he has what he needs, giving him intimate knowledge of his victims’ daily habits and floor plans. He’s planning everything out in advance, giving him a horrifying advantage over his victims.
Our Killer’s Sophomore Slump
In the lore that Looky-Loo: Part II establishes, there’s now a popular snuff film playing at drive-in theaters that features footage from the first film. The sequel itself opens in the home of his next victims, an older married couple who don’t match his usual victim profile. Up to this point, Looky Loo has always gone after young, attractive women, but there’s a personal stake in this opening sequence. He’s playing a news broadcast featuring a man saying that if he ever got his hands on the killer, it’d be game over. When the camera zooms out, it’s clear that this is the same man Looky Loo currently has bound and gagged.
After finishing off the man and his wife, Looky Loo reaches into a puddle of blood and writes “Part II” on the refrigerator, because in his mind this is just another film project, and this is the most badass way to come up with a title card.
I’m not going to go into the granular details and do a full breakdown of Looky-Loo: Part II, but there are a couple of things to consider about our killer’s mental state that I clocked while watching the upcoming sequel. He’s getting careless. He doesn’t appear to be constantly editing footage anymore, which suggests he’s less cautious when entering his victims’ homes. He gets spotted and nearly overpowered on more than one occasion. He starts interacting with objects in his victims’ houses that could easily blow his cover before he’s able to satisfy his sadistic urges.
Looky Loo’s check engine light is illuminated, which tells you he’s not even taking care of his getaway vehicle despite planning to escalate. He shows up in public places with his camera, presumably in plain clothes, though we only ever see his shadow. Again, careless. There are also several sequences involving a woman who is either his next victim or someone he hires so he can work out his fantasies in a controlled environment before doing it for real. In these scenes, she sits awkwardly on a bed, reads his poetry, and tries on various outfits and wigs that match his preferred victim type. Strangely, she doesn’t seem scared, but almost sympathetic toward him.
Like its predecessor, Looky-Loo: Part II has sparse dialogue and features long tracking shots, heavy breathing, and the sound of footsteps scraping along the sidewalk. Occasionally, while hiding in somebody’s closet, he turns off the camera to conserve battery life. When he starts recording again, it’s clear that time has passed, and he’s about to do something terrible now that everybody is asleep and completely unaware of his presence in the one place they’re supposed to feel safe.
Most disturbing, though, is the same sick rush I had while watching this film that I had with the first one. Zink makes the deliberate choice to have viewers follow the worst protagonist imaginable. He’s a horrible person. He’s mentally unstable. He’s done nothing but stalk and kill throughout the entire runtime. But the important thing that you need to consider is that Looky Loo is the protagonist, so you feel compelled to see his story through, and, to a degree, see him succeed, because that’s how storytelling works. The protagonist is usually the hero. Here, he’s the exact opposite. Everything he does is reprehensible, but you stay invested because it’s the story you’re following. In a way, his sick and twisted fantasy of being famous comes to life because you’re watching him build out the lore in real time, and you can’t help but hope it’s a great story.
That’s what makes the Looky-Loo films so messed up and fun to watch. By design, you’re forced to root for the bad guy, and that’s exactly what he wants.
As of this writing, Looky-Loo: Part II is wrapping post-production, and a release date has yet to be announced. To prime yourself for what’s to come, you can stream the first Looky-Loo for free on Tubi.
Entertainment
New safety rules for under-16 Snapchat users
Snapchat is rolling out new content-sharing protections for 13- to 15-year-old users.
The platform announced Wednesday that younger teens will get a “friends-only” experience for their Spotlight posts. That public feed consists of vertical videos short-form similar to Instagram Reels or TikTok.
The new rules make Spotlight content posted by 13- to 15-year-olds visible only to the user’s mutually accepted friends. Previously, under-16 users could post to Spotlight, without attribution to their profile.
“This allowed teens to participate, while helping to protect them from potentially unwanted contact that can come with public posting,” the Snap Company said in its announcement.
Under-16 Snapchat users will have a dedicated profile space for certain content.
Credit: Courtesy Snapchat
Now younger Snapchatters will get a space on their profile for creating, saving, and sharing Stories and Spotlight Videos with only their mutually accepted friends. Teens ages 16 and 17 can share content publicly with some safeguards.
“This new experience is designed to encourage creativity and self-expression within a trusted audience,” the company said.
Age checking on Snapchat
Currently, Snapchat relies on self-attested age and age inference, but safety advocates generally say social media platforms need high-quality age assurance to ensure their safety measures are effective.
When Mashable tested Snapchat’s age attestation prior to the announcement, we found that Snapchat defaulted user age to 18 years old.
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With the new policy, if Snapchat determines a user is under 16, despite their stated age, that minor will be shifted into the friends-only sharing setting. That change will appear in the Snapchat app if they choose to post a Spotlight video.
Snapchat safety concerns
Last week, the advocacy groups Heat Initiative, Anxious Generation, ParentsTogether Action, and Design It 4 Us published the results of a survey of teen Snapchat users, alleging that the platform’s safety measures aren’t effective enough.
A third of the poll’s 1,016 respondents said they’d seen or received unsafe content or messages in the past week. More than half said they’d had at least one such experience in the past year.
The top three types of dangerous experiences reported by up to a third of teens were unwanted contact, bullying, and sexually suggestive content and messages. More than 40 percent of respondents who’d received unwanted messages believed the sender was an adult.
A Snap Company spokesperson told Mashable that the report “does not fully reflect the significant investments Snap has made to help protect young people.”
In the blog post Snap published Wednesday, the company noted that it works to prevent the delivery of friend requests from potential strangers, and that the platform doesn’t allow teens to be messaged by anyone they haven’t added as a friend or who’s not in their phone contacts. Additionally, when teens accept a stranger as a friend, Snapchat is designed to send warnings when minors begin chatting with that user.
“After years of advocacy by parents, kids, and experts, it’s encouraging that Snap is finally making some changes to try to prevent young children from posting in adult spaces, which has put kids in danger on the platform for years,” Brooke Istook, president and chief strategy officer at Heat Initiative, said in a statement to Mashable.
Istook added, however, that “fundamental dangers for kids that are baked into Snapchat’s design” remain unaddressed, including the facilitation of unsafe connections between teens and adults and the algorithmic recommendation of unsafe content.
Snapchat has been the target of youth safety activism and the target of legal action, like many major social media platforms. In January, Snap settled a lawsuit brought by a teenager who claimed that Snapchat’s design features, like algorithmic recommendations, led to addictive use and mental health harms. Soon after, Snap introduced new parental controls for teens.
UPDATE: Jun. 10, 2026, 8:27 a.m. PDT This story has been updated to include a statement from Heat Initiative.
Entertainment
Using Claude Fable 5 means your data will be collected. It’s not optional.
Anthropic just released its most powerful public model yet — Claude Fable 5. However, along with the model’s release, the AI giant also made a significant update to its data retention policies.
Fable 5 was released to the public on Tuesday. Fable 5 is a “safe for general use” version of Anthropic’s most powerful model, Mythos, which has been restricted from public use due to its potentially dangerous cybersecurity capabilities. Anthropic created a set of safety guardrails for Fable 5, and its benchmarks blow away much of the competition, per Anthropic.
But it looks like Anthropic has also blown away its data retention policies for Fable 5.
“To ensure we’re responsibly deploying Mythos-class models, we are requiring limited data retention and review as part of our safety work,” reads an update on Anthropic’s official Claude support page. “Prompts submitted to, and outputs generated by, Mythos-class models are retained for 30 days for trust and safety purposes, on every platform where these models are offered.”
The update was first noticed by Jun Park, the CEO of AI training company hillclimb.
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“New policy from Anthropic: if you use Fable/Mythos, they collect your data. No exceptions. Not even for enterprise partners,” Park posted on X.
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This change is significant for Anthropic’s enterprise and API customers, says Jessica Eaves Mathews, a lawyer who specializes in copyright, trademark, and AI law.
In a post on Mathews’ Substack (as highlighted by CyberNews), the lawyer explains how Anthropic already retains user data for 30 days under its free and paid consumer plans. However, Matthews says this change nullifies part of any agreement Anthropic has with its enterprise and API partners.
“Every other Claude model available through the API, including Opus 4.8, Sonnet 4.6, and Haiku 4.5, can operate under Zero Data Retention (ZDR) agreements,” Mathews writes. “Fable 5 cannot. If your organization previously had a ZDR agreement with Anthropic, that agreement does not apply to Fable 5 traffic. This is a policy change that overrides existing enterprise commitments for this specific model class.”
Mathews says that any organization that believed that their data would not be stored by Anthropic should know that there is now a “mandatory exception” for Fable 5 and all future Mythos models.
While Mythos-class models seem to be quite powerful, companies should know about the change in Anthropic’s data retention policies and make adjustments where necessary.
Entertainment
Tons of Fitbits are on sale ahead of Prime Day
Best early Prime Day Fitbit deals at a glance:
Amazon’s Prime Day sales event is right around the corner (I can’t believe it’s that time of year again!), and I’m genuinely shocked by the deals we’re seeing this early in the game.
Usually, Amazon doesn’t put Fitbits on sale until the very last minute, and then they’re gone. (And some years, they don’t go on sale at all.) But right now, we’re seeing all-time lows on select Fitbit models, including the Charge 6.
Here are the best early Prime Day Fitbit deals you can shop right now:
Best deal overall
$99.95
at Amazon
$159.95
Save $60.00
Why we like it
The Fitbit Charge 6 isn’t the newest Fitbit on the market, but it still has (almost) everything you’d need in a smart wearable. (I say almost because the Fitbit Charge 6 doesn’t have an altimeter, but if you’re not a trail runner, this probably isn’t a deal breaker.)
The Charge 6 tracks your calories, steps, sleep, heart rate, and more. It also has built-in GPS, 40+ exercise modes, a seven-day battery life, and includes a three-month Google Health Premium (formerly Fitbit Premium) membership. Once the three months are up, you’ll need to either cancel or renew for $9.99 per month or $99.99 annually.
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Right now, you can get the Fitbit Charge 6 for $99.95 at Amazon. This is the lowest price we’ve tracked on this model since its release in 2023.
Best runner-up deal
Why we like it
If you’re willing to spend a little bit more, the Fitbit Versa 4 is on sale for $149.95. This isn’t the lowest price we’ve seen (it was $104.96 in April 2024), but it’s still a pretty good deal.
Unlike the Charge 6, the Versa 4 has an altimeter and Bluetooth wrist calling. So, if you’re looking for a wearable that acts more like a smartwatch, the Versa 4 might be the better buy. That said, it doesn’t have the more “serious” health sensor that the Charge 6 does (e.g., ECG and EDA).
The Versa 4 also comes with three months of Google Health Premium.
Best budget deal
$79.95
at Walmart
$89.95
Save $10
Why we like it
If you’re just looking for something that’s affordable and efficient, the Fitbit Inspire 3 is your best option at $79.95.
It’s a no-frills fitness tracker that’ll give you the basic features you need to stay on top of your health. It can track your heart rate, steps, and stress levels. (It also offers menstrual health tracking, which is nice.)
You’ll also get 10 full days of battery life and, like the other models mentioned above, three free months of Google Health Premium.
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