Entertainment
Insane, Unrated Sci-Fi Thriller Leaves You Stranded And Afraid
By Robert Scucci
| Published
As a cardio junkie who eats an embarrassing amount of pizza throughout the week, I try to squeeze in a good workout every single day. During the winter months I hit the treadmill or exercise bike for about an hour. When it gets warmer, I love a good jog for some old fashioned Vitamin D. The difference between my fitness choices and the ones depicted in 2022’s Brightwood is that I can stop whenever I want because I’m not trapped in a time loop with a mysterious hooded figure following me around and trying to kill me.
For good measure, I also try not to get my steps in near creepy lakes with hidden access paths. I like blasting music in my earbuds, and I don’t want to find myself in a remote area, where a menacing voice in the distance is telling me to run away, which I would absolutely not hear.
A Low-Budget High-Stakes Time Loop Thriller
Though its financials are not widely reported, Brightwood was produced for an estimated $14,000, and it shows. Fortunately, its story is so simple and effectively told that it probably could have been shot for even less, though I am no accountant. The film has only two primary characters, Jen (Dana Berger) and Dan (Max Woertendyke), along with a couple of stand-ins who briefly appear when more bodies are needed.
Brightwood follows a married couple whose relationship is clearly strained, with an inciting incident the night before setting everything in motion. Jen is fed up with Dan after he gets drunk at a work party and flirts with his coworkers. She channels her rage into dragging him on a long run while he is violently hungover, not holding back when she tells him how unhappy she is and how they have been together for a “stupid amount of time.”
Dan comes across as the complacent, mildly incompetent husband who has taken his marriage for granted. That was my initial read, at least. But the longer Brightwood sits with them, the murkier it becomes. Jen looks perpetually furious, her scowl capable of freezing you in place. It is hard to tell whether she has always been this way, forcing Dan to retreat into himself and his drinking, or if his emotional laziness slowly turned her into a stone cold scorpion woman. If I had to guess, they are both contributing equally to their shared misery but are too afraid to admit it.
It already seems obvious their nearly decade-long union is on the brink, but then their world tilts sideways when they realize they cannot leave the hiking trail they are running on. The path out disappears, and there is no clear way home. Worse, a mysterious hooded man keeps crossing their path. He never gets too close, but when they hear him in the distance, the only word they can make out is “run.”
Devising A Solid Exit Plan
As time passes in Brightwood, Jen and Dan begin questioning how long they have actually been stuck on the trail. Clues pile up. After Jen drops her earbuds, they begin noticing duplicate pairs, then triplicate pairs, and eventually entire piles of them, suggesting they have been trapped in this loop far longer than they realize.
When they finally catch a glimpse of the hooded man, he bears a striking resemblance to Dan. This doppelganger Dan kills Jen, sending the real Dan sprinting off in terror, only to reconnect with another version of Jen who has no idea what just happened.
Jen’s solo experiences mirror Dan’s. She witnesses Dan being killed multiple times and even kills one of him herself in a fit of rage. When they reunite, there is no clear way to determine which version of each we are watching. There is no visual shorthand to guide you, which means there could be dozens of Jens and Dans wandering the trail, encountering the hooded figure, getting killed, and being dragged off to some undisclosed location.
Next Time, Just Use The Treadmill
Brightwood accomplishes a surprising amount with very limited resources. Its lack of flashy effects or obvious visual cues makes the experience disorienting in the best way. The only consistent sign that something supernatural may be happening is a piercing ringing in their ears that sounds like high frequency feedback or a dog whistle. They just keep running, occasionally spotting their equally confused duplicates doing the same thing on a slightly different timeline.
A lean, tense psychological sci fi thriller, Brightwood belongs in the same conversation as Coherence (2013), Primer (2004), and Empathy, Inc. (2018), all of which prove you do not need a massive budget to create something deeply unnerving. A strong concept, committed performances, and a willingness to let the audience sit in confusion can go a long way.
As of this writing, you can stream Brightwood for free on Tubi.
Entertainment
Maddies Secret trailer reveals John Early as youve never seen him before
Comedian John Early makes his feature directorial debut with Maddie’s Secret, an offbeat homage to melodrama that he wrote and headlines as its eponymous heroine.
As an aspiring food influencer, Maddie Ralph (Early) is passionate about her cuisine. And at first glance, she’s got a picture-perfect life: a loving husband (Eric Rahill), a devoted best friend (Kate Berlant), and a job at a culinary content studio called Gourmaybe. But as the title suggests, there’s a side to Maddie she can’t stomach sharing with her loved ones. And this secret could kill her.
Out of the movie’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall, I cheered Maddie’s Secret, writing in my review for Mashable, “The film is silly and strange, but even amid campy bits, sincere. So, you’ll laugh at its parody elements, but may well be genuinely moved by Early’s commitment to this strange and splendid film.”
I also said “John Early is a better ingénue than Sydney Sweeney,” comparing Maddie’s Secret to another earnest (but less entertaining) TIFF offering, Christy. And I stand by it.
Maddie’s Secret opens in theaters in New York on June 19, and in Los Angeles on June 26.
Entertainment
Pride is almost here! Check out the best dating apps for LGBTQ women.
We know Pride is all year round, but there is something special about the month of June. We’re not there quite yet, but if you want a main squeeze for all the parades and parties, you gotta start looking now. How about on a dating app?
As a lesbian, you probably know all about them. Lesbian Americans (along with bisexual and gay Americans) are far more likely to have ever used dating apps than straight Americans: 51 percent to 28 percent, according to the Pew Research Center.
There are a few reasons why LGBTQ people might turn to online dating more quickly than straight folks. For one, you might live in an area without a thriving LGBTQ community, and in-person dating may be hard. If you don’t know other lesbians to begin with, how can you meet more IRL to date? (Sometimes, lesbian spaces can also be co-opted by The Straights.) Unfortunately, in-person dating may also be less safe, depending on where you live.
Hookup apps for everyone
AdultFriendFinder
—
readers’ pick for casual connections
Tinder
—
top pick for finding hookups
Hinge
—
popular choice for regular meetups
Thankfully, we live in a time where we can find people like us with a few swipes. Lesbians are welcome on major dating apps, and there are also niche ones specifically for lesbians and other queer women and people. But which one to choose?
How to find the best dating apps for lesbians
Niche lesbian dating apps aren’t your only option for finding love.
Credit: Stacey Zhu / Mashable
In Mashable’s recommendations below, you’ll find both general dating apps and apps specifically for queer people. As the former appeals to the general population, you’ll find more users in these spaces. The caveat, however, is that when you swipe on other women, you might find those coupled with men who are looking for another woman to have a threesome with (aka unicorn hunters). No judgment here, but that’s probably not what you’re looking for. Then again, people of all types are on dating apps like Tinder and Hinge. You never know who you may come across.
Then there are apps specifically for the community, like HER and Lex. If you yearn for a smaller dating scene, head for these apps. While there’s no “Grindr for lesbians” — we go into why in the FAQ section — these apps are more so like stepping into your neighborhood lesbian bar than an app like Bumble.
You can also try multiple dating apps, as each one below has a free version. You can filter by the gender you identify with and are looking for, and sometimes, as with OkCupid, there are many options to choose from.
Diving into the dating pool isn’t easy, but the water’s fine. Check out our guide below for the full rundown of our recommendations and dating app reviews.
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.
Mashable Light Speed
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.
Maddies Secret trailer reveals John Early as youve never seen him before
Pride is almost here! Check out the best dating apps for LGBTQ women.
