Entertainment
Kathleen Turner's Extremely R-Rated Comedy Slasher Is An Earlier, Raunchier Scream
By Robert Scucci
| Published
If you’re a horror fan, you probably think about the genre’s mainstream entries in terms of before Scream and after it. Scream changed the game because its characters, to some degree, are aware that they’re living in a slasher film. Matthew Lillard’s Stu is a horror movie expert who knows all the tropes, tricks, and rules for survival. Ghostface always has a different motive or identity, allowing the franchise to build out its lore in increasingly convoluted ways while somehow staying grounded. Most importantly, even though the gore is top notch, there are plenty of laugh-out-loud moments.
I’m not here to talk about 1996’s Scream, though, but rather 1994’s Serial Mom, a John Waters film operating on the exact same wavelength as Wes Craven’s teen-scream masterpiece, two years before it made its rounds. I’m not saying this to call out one filmmaker for ripping off another, either. Most likely, horror by the mid-90s had reached a point where audiences were bored with straight-up slashers, while more comical entries like Dr. Giggles didn’t necessarily perform well due to being so over the top. If anything, both filmmakers were simply in the same creative headspace and wanted to make something with the edge of a slasher, but humor that leaned more satirical.
Serial Mom is violent, crude, slapstick, and even features Matthew Freakin Lillard as a horror movie expert who uses genre rules as a means to survive the slayings happening in his community. This movie is nothing like Scream from a storytelling perspective, but it’s a perfect companion piece because it occupies the same lane, but with a wildly different destination.
Kathleen Turner Overdrive
Serial Mom is exactly what it sounds like. We’re introduced to Beverly Sutphin (Kathleen Turner), a picture-perfect Stepford wife type with a dark streak. While she seems perfectly sane on the surface (debatable, but just roll with it), she has a tendency to commit murder over perceived slights that bear absolutely no significance to her life. For example, somebody chewing gum loudly or wearing white shoes after Labor Day is enough to send her into a uncontrollable rage. She wants everything to be perfect, and when anything fails to live up to her psychotic standards, the cracks start to show.
When she’s not using magazine clippings to send inappropriate letters to one of her neighbors, Dottie Hinkle (Mink Stole), she’s calling her house and screaming profanities into the phone. Her son and daughter, Misty (Ricki Lake) and Chip (Matthew Lillard), are typical suburban teenagers, but they know better than to cross their mother. Especially after Chip complains about his math teacher, only for the guy to turn up dead after Beverly confronts him during a PTA meeting.
Slowly but surely, the entire community of Towson, Maryland goes on high alert as the victim count piles up, all while Beverly goes about her day completely unperturbed. Her husband Eugene has every reason to be suspicious, but like the rest of the Sutphin family, he’s terrified of her in that specific way where everybody knows better than to acknowledge the obvious problem sitting right in front of them.
The Running Gags Are The Reason To Stick Around
What truly separates Serial Mom from Scream, though, are its running gags. For one thing, Kathleen Turner looks certifiably insane in every single scene. Every shot frames Beverly’s wholesome side from one angle and her unhinged side from another, effortlessly shifting between the two and never letting the viewer feel fully confident about when she’s going to snap next. There’s a built-in tension there, and to me, that’s the movie’s funniest recurring joke.
Misty frequently has run-ins with authority figures like Detectives Pike (Scott Wesley Morgan) and Gracey (Walt MacPherson), along with other adults who all seem weirdly hot and bothered by her mere presence even though she’s barely a teenager. They share a knowing glance, then continue the scene as if absolutely nothing strange or sexually suggestive just happened.
The sight gags range from Golden Era Simpsons-level clever to downright juvenile, and Waters is clearly playing a numbers game to see how many zingers he can cram into a 93-minute slasher comedy.
The Scream Connection
The best part about Serial Mom, however, has to be its level of self-awareness. Like Scream, it knows it’s a slasher. Matthew Lillard’s characters in both films act as the bridge between fiction and real life because they’re the ones connecting the dots on a meta level and communicating them directly to the audience. In both films, they lay out the rules of the established fiction and back them up with examples from the media they consume.
At the end of the day, Serial Mom and Scream are two totally different movies doing two totally different things. Suggesting they’re alike from a storytelling perspective would be preposterous. But they are both slashers with twisted senses of humor, and they both hinge on meta-comedy that allows for their otherwise boilerplate premises to do something fresh with the slasher subgenre.
Scream plays things more seriously and is genuinely scary whenever it decides to lean into straight horror. There’s none of that in Serial Mom, which plays more like a slapstick comedy than a traditional slasher, but has just as much fun subverting expectations in its own twisted way.
As of this writing, Serial Mom is streaming free on Tubi.
Entertainment
ChatGPT users can now choose a trusted contact"
OpenAI has been under intense legal and public pressure to improve the way its flagship AI product ChatGPT responds when a user express suicidal feelings.
On Thursday, the company launched a feature called Trusted Contact, which allows users to designate an adult to notify should the user talk about self-harm or suicide in a serious or concerning way.
The optional feature only encourages the trusted contact to reach out to the user. It does not share chat transcripts or conversation details.
“Our goal is to ensure that AI systems do not exist in isolation,” the company said in a blog post announcing the feature. “Instead they should help connect people to the real-world care, relationships, and resources that matter most.”
OpenAI has been sued multiple times for wrongful death by family members of ChatGPT users who died by suicide after ChatGPT allegedly coached them to end their lives or didn’t respond appropriately to their discussions of psychological distress. OpenAI has denied the allegations in the first of those lawsuits.
Mashable Trend Report
A designated trusted contact receives an invitation like this from ChatGPT.
Credit: Courtesy OpenAI
The state of Florida is also investigating ChatGPT’s links to “criminal behavior,” including the “encouragement of suicide and self-harm.”
Trusted Contact was developed with feedback from experts, including OpenAI’s Expert Council on Well-Being and AI and the American Psychological Association.
“Helping people identify a trusted person in advance, while preserving their choice and autonomy, can make it easier to reach out to real-world support when it matters most,” Dr. Arthur Evans, chief executive officer of the American Psychological Association, said in a statement.
How ChatGPT’s Trusted Contact works
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Users can start the Trusted Contact process by clicking on their ChatGPT settings.
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One adult age 18 or older can be added via the Trusted Contact form.
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The contact doesn’t need a ChatGPT account.
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The designated contact will receive an invitation from OpenAI explaining their role as a trusted contact. They must accept the invite within one week in order to activate the feature. The contact can share their phone number or email address as a contact method. Should the person decline, the user can add a different adult.
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When OpenAI’s automated monitoring systems detect discussion of self-harm or indicates a serious safety issue, ChatGPT alerts the user that the company may notify their trusted contact. The user prompt encourages outreach to the trusted contact and provides conversation starters.
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The safety issue is then reviewed by what OpenAI describes as a “small team of specially trained people.” When the human reviewers confirm a possible serious safety concern, ChatGPT sends the Trusted Contact a brief email or text message. If the person has a ChatGPT account, they will receive an in-app notification.
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The notification doesn’t include details about the user’s discussion. Instead, it informs the trusted contact that the user mentioned self-harm and encourages the contact to reach out. The message includes a link to guidance for having sensitive conversations.
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Users are free to remove or edit their Trusted Contact at any time. The Trusted Contact can also remove themselves via ChatGPT’s help center.
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.
If you’re feeling suicidal or experiencing a mental health crisis, please talk to somebody. You can call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. You can reach the Trans Lifeline by calling 877-565-8860 or the Trevor Project at 866-488-7386. Text “START” to Crisis Text Line at 741-741. Contact the NAMI HelpLine at 1-800-950-NAMI, Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET, or email [email protected]. If you don’t like the phone, consider using the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Chat. Here is a list of international resources.
Entertainment
New report: X remains the most dangerous platform for LGBTQ users
Elon Musk’s X is still the most unsafe social media platform for LGBTQ+ users, according to a new report by GLAAD.
The organization’s annual Social Media Safety Index (SMSI) and its “platform scorecards” grade social media sites on LGBTQ safety, privacy, and expression. GLAAD assessed external-facing policies on diversity programs, content moderation, user suppression, and enforcement mechanisms, among other metrics, for six major companies: Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, and TikTok.
X scored just 29 points out of a possible 100. No platform has ever scored above a 67.
Mashable Light Speed
While X may have received the worst marks of the bunch, none of the platforms analyzed by the organization got passing grades. Many, in fact, hit historic lows. GLAAD found that all platforms were “rife with anti-LGBTQ hate, harassment, and disinformation,” and noted nationwide rollbacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts.
The report specifically calls out Meta and YouTube’s updated LGBTQ policies, including Meta’s overhaul of its Hateful Conduct policy. YouTube’s score fell 11 points, the most severe drop, compared to the 2025 analysis. TikTok was the only platform whose score did not decrease over the last year, although it still only earned a score of 56 out of 100.
GLAAD began issuing platform scorecards in 2021. Over the last five years, X has consistently earned some of the lowest scores among competitor platforms — X came out on top of TikTok in the organization’s 2022 report. Scores are based on corporate transparency metrics established by global digital human rights organization Ranking Digital Rights and 14 LGBTQ-specific online indicators, GLAAD explained.
GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis wrote:
“Leading social media companies today do not meet basic best practices in content moderation, transparency, data privacy, and workforce diversity — and continuously refuse to meaningfully prioritize the safety, privacy, and expression of LGBTQ people and other marginalized communities. Advertisers should question commitments to LGBTQ safety and the disregard for the safety of LGBTQ users as they plan which platforms to continue to support.
To LGBTQ creators, advocates, and organizations targeted on and by these platforms: these companies need to hear from you. The threats in your DMs, the disinformation fueling anti-LGBTQ legislation, and the bullying that leads to real-world violence are not just ‘part of the job.’ They are systemic failures that tech leaders have the tools to fix, yet they choose to profit from them instead.”
Entertainment
AirPods with cameras reportedly in final testing at Apple
Apple might expand its AI wearable efforts into the world of AirPods.
Bloomberg reported today that Apple is in the final stages of testing a new AirPods model that would feature small cameras in each earbud. They would have longer stems than the AirPods you’re used to, but would otherwise look very similar, says Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.
According to his latest report, the device has “entered a phase where prototypes feature a near-final design and capabilities” after years of development internally, but we don’t have a firm release date yet. It’s also possible that these prototype AirPods never make it to market.
In case you’re worried about being surreptitiously recorded by any random person with AirPods you see on the street, these cameras would not be used for any kind of photo or video capture. Instead, Gurman says they would be low-resolution modules used to see the environment for the purpose of interacting with an AI assistant.
We first heard about AirPods with cameras back in 2024, when the reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo described AirPods with built-in infrared cameras. At the time, he said these modules would be similar to FaceID cameras and power new spatial audio experiences. More recently, Gurman reported on camera-equipped AirPods this January, saying the focus would be on powering AI features.
Mashable Light Speed
Gurman says the AirPods will apparently include a little LED indicator light that turns on when the cameras are working their magic, but without seeing the earbuds in action, we don’t know how visible that will be to anyone else yet.
While Apple has a strong track record with privacy, there are obvious privacy concerns with putting cameras (no matter how low resolution) in a pair of earbuds. Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses have enabled a lot of bad behavior, for instance.
All of this begs the question: Would you wear earbuds with a built-in camera?
As someone who vividly remembers the very negative public response to Google Glass, I do wonder if the populace will feel differently this time around.
Big Tech companies clearly think there will be demand for this sort of device. OpenAI is working on an AI wearable with the famed designer Jony Ive, and Motorola released a concept AI pendant at CES 2026. Apple is also rumored to be working on a wearable AI pin, while Meta and Google have invested in developing smart glasses with cameras.
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