By Robert Scucci
| Published 1 hour ago

Have you ever watched one of those movies that forces you to sit in silence, shudder loudly, and then resume going about your existence as if you weren’t deeply disturbed by the story you just witnessed unfold? This is how I felt after watching 2025’s Mermaid, which begins with Tom Arnold getting killed off-screen by a hideous finned creature that somehow made its way onto his character’s boat, just before saying that this movie is a “love letter to Florida.”

All of my in-laws live in Florida, and I’m always getting sent those crazy “Florida Man” headlines as a way to keep the conversation going. With that context in mind, this is the most Florida thing I’ve ever seen. On the surface, it’s a story about an unemployed fish tank cleaner who finds a wounded mermaid (after she kills Tom Arnold, who’s never seen or heard from again in this film), intending to nurse her back to health before letting her back out into the wild.

Beneath that murky, chummy water, though, is a much deeper story about addiction, purpose, and trying to find connection in a world that’s more isolated than ever. Mermaid is also morbidly hilarious and features some of the most repulsive creature designs I’ve ever seen, which makes the whole thing feel like a waking nightmare.

If you’re from Florida, you may want to give Mermaid a go for its sheer ridiculousness alone. But you really don’t need much context beyond the above description to know you’re about to take a deep dive into a world that doesn’t seem real at first, but hits uncomfortably close to home if you’ve ever watched somebody close to you lose themselves to addiction.

Not You’re Average Ariel

Mermaid centers on our supremely likeable but completely tapped-out Doug (Johnny Pemberton), who makes an honest but meager living cleaning fish tanks. When we first meet him, he’s getting fired from his strip club job because, according to his boss, nobody shows up for the massive fish tank. We learn how lonely and isolated Doug’s life is during his usual custody visit with his daughter, Layla (Devyn McDowell). He tries to connect with her on the most fundamental level, but she’d rather go home and spend time with her mother, Tina (Julia Valentine Larson), and stepfather, Keith (Kevin Nealon).

Outside of his dysfunctional former family life, Doug is hopelessly addicted to various substances. If he’s not drinking, he’s popping pills, and if he’s not popping pills, it probably means he’s out of money, which incenses his late father’s friend and local drug dealer, Ron Bocca (Robert Patrick), and his son, Gator (Tyler Rice), who doubles as his enforcer. Doug owes Ron a ton of money, which the latter is willing to let slide given how long they’ve known each other, but their relationship has hit a boiling point. Before long, the father and son are threatening him and roughing him up.

Which brings us to our titular creature, the mermaid portrayed by Avery Potemri. While wandering the marina and contemplating suicide one day, Doug discovers the boat from the beginning of the film and decides to take the creature in and nurse it back to health. This mermaid is the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and it’s truly the stuff of nightmares. It’s also implied that the mermaid is an apex predator, and if she were actually healthy, she’d have no problem ripping somebody’s throat out without hesitation if she felt threatened or got hungry.

Doug, in his infinite wisdom, decides to let her live in his apartment, but it’s not even out of some weird, twisted romantic interest or anything like that. He genuinely cares about fish, and this woman is nothing but. He lets her live in his bathtub and feeds her copious amounts of drugs (often crushed up in Spaghettios) so she can properly heal and, hopefully, not kill him in the process. As you would expect, the already fractured family dynamic Doug experiences takes a turn for the worse, and matters only continue to escalate when Ron realizes he could probably exploit the mermaid for financial gain, which would square him up with Doug.

Wasn’t Expecting To Get This Emotional

At its core, Mermaid is a dark comedy about watching somebody lose themselves to addiction. Doug is such a good guy, but he’s also a freakin’ weirdo. He copes with his awkwardness by consuming whatever drugs he can get his hands on, and I don’t think there’s a single second in this movie when he’s not in an altered state or coming down from one. When he decides to bring the mermaid out for his daughter’s birthday, it causes a scene, to say the least, which prompts Tina, Keith, and Layla to show up at his place to deliver an intervention.

There were several times during the film when I truly wondered if the mermaid was real or a figment of Doug’s imagination, but since this isn’t a psychological thriller, and that would be a cop-out, it’s made clear that we’re dealing with an actual mermaid. Most people in this world simply refuse to believe it’s real, even when it’s brought out in public.

While you should definitely be concerned about whether the mermaid is going to eat somebody’s face off, the thing that’s truly alarming about Doug’s relationship with the creature is how much he needs her around. It’s not a romantic interest, however, but rather a platonic one, as far as I can tell. The man is simply so lonely that this is the only living being he can form a meaningful connection with, even if he spends most of his time drugging her and stitching up whatever injuries she sustained before they met. In my mind, he feels like he lost his daughter, and this is his only way to be a nurturing father figure and feel appreciated for it.

The intervention scene, when Layla reads him a poem about how she’s afraid to lose her father, is truly gut-wrenching and makes this whole bizarre movie pull at your heartstrings. But don’t worry, because from that point forward, Mermaid goes full-on Florida and delivers one of the most bizarre endings I’ve seen in a long time. At the very least, I’ll be thinking about this one for a while.

Mermaid is not an easy watch, and it is currently not available through any regular streaming subscriptions. It’s presently available on demand through Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, and Fandango at Home.

By Robert Scucci
| Published 6 seconds ago

A couple years ago, I fell into an analog horror rabbit hole and never looked back. When the original The Backrooms shorts were uploaded to YouTube, I was hooked on the strange subgenre that’s been made possible by countless young filmmakers who grew up online and have an intimidating grasp of genre blending, building out mythology with their audiences in real time, and posting their art straight to YouTube instead of taking more traditional paths.

Analog horror is punk rock, and it’s a movement that I’ve been rooting for since I became aware of it. Admittedly, I’m late to the party and have only begun to scratch the surface, but I’ve been obsessed with the subgenre long enough to point your attention toward the essentials, because the past is prologue.

My goal here is to put together an analog horror primer because the subgenre now has mainstream attention, and there will be plenty more where that came from. There are so many talking heads on YouTube and Instagram who are angered by the fact that people are comparing Backrooms to Skinamarink, but there’s one very important thing to take away from this: analog horror operates on a wide spectrum, using liminal space, “lost media,” and internet folklore to drive its storytelling.

Not all analog horror is created equal, so I’m going to break it down for you (in no particular order because these are wildly different and impossible to rank) so you know what kinds of flavors are out there if you enjoyed Backrooms but want to keep digging.

Skinamarink

Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink is an endurance test at 100 minutes for the kind of story it’s trying to tell, but it’s an early feature-length experiment that introduces some of the visual language you’ll find throughout analog horror. Set in 1995, the film centers on two little kids, 6-year-old Kaylee (Dali Rose Tetreault) and 4-year-old Kevin (Lucas Paul). One night, while their parents are absent (you find out why later), all the doors and windows in their house disappear, and they only have each other and the glowing TV in the room to keep them company. They build forts in the living room and try to make the best of the situation, even though they hear menacing voices from upstairs that sound like disembodied versions of their parents.

Filmed in its entirety for $15,000 in Ball’s childhood home, Skinamarink is a slow-burn nightmare told through the perspective of frightened children. You see everything at their eye level, and the only lighting comes from either a nightlight or their glowing TV. You think you might see a face in the shadows, but it could all be in your head. It’s a picture-perfect representation of that nameless, endless fear you feel as a child when you’re left alone for the first time and hear strange noises. It’s fear without articulation, which is the most frightening thing of all.

While you need to be built differently to enjoy Skinamarink because it’s a challenging film, it’s a solid entry point for analog horror because it’s set in the ’90s and boasts the VHS aesthetic that most filmmakers in this wheelhouse latch onto. If you’re a millennial approaching middle age, Skinamarink is nostalgia for a simpler, pre-digital time, but also a reminder that existential dread transcends technology.

The Mandela Catalogue

Conceived by YouTuber Alex Kister during the COVID lockdowns, The Mandela Catalogue is the finest example of mixed-media use in analog horror. Taking place across the ’90s and early aughts, the story follows the fictional Wisconsin community of Mandela County, which has been plagued by doppelgangers known as Alternates who slowly replace people by driving them to suicide and then taking their form. There’s religious imagery everywhere, often presented through creepy lost media cartoons depicting the Archangel Gabriel, and there’s a healthy amount of found-footage filmmaking here too.

It’s not worth breaking down the character dynamics here because the web series gets quite convoluted, and it’s one of those things you’re better off experiencing for yourself. Through Emergency Broadcast Systems, computer screens, GPS devices, and camcorders, you’re slowly clued into how far gone the community has become, giving you reason to believe these Alternates have humanity outnumbered and the government has pretty much given up on intervening at this point.

The Mandela Catalogue is still going strong, and it’s very much a community experience. Most people heard about it through reaction videos, and the lore keeps building, with the most recent installment arriving this past March. Half the fun is discussing everything in the comments section, where people are surprisingly receptive to fan theories and turning literally everything into a meme.

No Through Road

Taking a more traditional found-footage approach, No Through Road has four installments that span several years, even though their collective runtime barely cracks 30 minutes. There’s really not much going on here, but it’s executed with such care and precision that I consider it one of the most frightening versions of the “kids with a video camera” setup the genre has to offer. It’s also worth noting that the series’ creator, Stephen Chamberlain, was just 17 years old when the first installment dropped.

No Through Road tells a simple story about a group of teenagers on a late-night drive who take a private access road that sends them into an unending time loop, where a masked man constantly torments them.

That’s pretty much the long and short of it, aside from one key detail that really sells it for me: we didn’t get a second installment until two and a half years after the first one, which was posted to YouTube as legitimate found footage. While it’s obvious that this was an art project, Chamberlain was smart enough to use the early days of YouTube to build out the lore. Like The Blair Witch Project had everybody believing it was real because the internet wasn’t what it is today, Chamberlain didn’t have that luxury and instead cloaked the whole thing in mystery by updating sparingly.

It’s kids being kids, experiencing a trauma sourced from some uncanny plane of existence, and then radio silence until Part 2 came out. From June 2009 to August 2012, we got four videos, and that’s it. You eventually learn how their relationships broke down between installments, but the wait between releases, coupled with online communities obsessing over every new development, certainly added to its allure when it was first making the rounds.

VCR Willie

A recent analog horror entry that’s still ongoing, Alexander Henderson’s (Alexanderthetitan) VCR Willie is found footage with an added layer of abstraction that makes the entire thing horrifying.

Aside from a quick explanation from Alexander, we’re presented with found footage taking place in an apartment that’s cursed by some sort of supernatural entity. According to Alex’s explanation, he woke up one day and found a Sony Handycam in his closet with a tape inside. He’s suggesting that whatever is on each tape is what he witnessed the during his dreams the night before; there’s no sign of him going out and filming any of the footage himself.

And what’s in the footage, you ask? Creepy, creepy people, all of whom live in Apartment #40. The footage suggests that these people know who Alex is, and he’s invited into their homes to help them deal with supernatural entities that, much like the ones seen in The Mandela Catalogue, are either doppelgangers or have taken over their hosts outright. The story isn’t told in chronological order, and we only see what Alex has access to through his tapes. What he does have access to, though, is terrifying.

It’s mostly just people staring through your soul and hiding behind objects that are far too small for them, as if they’re not yet familiar with the dimensions of their new bodies, but for some reason it’s completely unnerving. Imagine coming home and seeing somebody who looks like a member of your family standing behind an open kitchen cabinet as if they’re hiding from you while laughing quietly, and they genuinely think you can’t see them. It’s the constant feeling of being watched, and never feeling safe, that makes VCR Willie such an effective effort.

Kepther E

“Kept Here,” stylized as Kepther E, falls into what’s known as the Alternate Reality Game (ARG) subgenre, making it a little more complicated than typical found-footage horror. It was so shocking at the time of its release that it was removed from the internet, but has since been restored through The Internet Archive and various YouTube compilations.

While it initially seems like a mass upload of unrelated found-footage content, you’ll find clues in the upload names that help you piece everything together chronologically (some people have uploaded them in order), and you’ll gradually start to understand what’s actually at stake.

Kepther E is mostly told from the perspective of a troubled teen named Alex, who’s often influenced to do terrible things by his unseen friend, Kevin. The tone and shooting style change depending on the upload prefix attached to each video, but they all lead to the same horrifying place: an abandoned house where it’s implied people are being held captive and tortured, as if it’s all part of some grand cinematic experiment that hasn’t yet been completed.

As each camera source pushes the narrative forward, we learn how everybody is connected, and it’s not for the faint of heart. I haven’t watched this series since I last wrote about it, and I still hear some of those distant screams in my head because they sound so genuine that it’s hard to shake them from your memory.

Indistinct Chatter

Falling into the “lost media” wheelhouse, Indistinct Chatter is a stop-motion experience created by YouTuber KrainagrzybowTV. The whole thing plays out like a bad fever dream, the kind you have when you fall asleep in front of the television and the line between your consciousness and subconsciousness starts to blur. Nothing seems real, but it feels like it’s all calling out to you.

Indistinct Chatter exists in that uncanny valley where you want to believe everything you’re seeing, but you know it’s all an illusion. I can’t say there’s really a point to this one beyond conjuring up the same kinds of memories that films like Skinamarink try to make you experience again as an adult. There’s nothing outright scary here, but there’s a nameless dread lurking around every corner, making you wonder if you’re watching somebody else’s dreams that you’re not supposed to see.

It’s really breezy too, clocking in at just over 30 minutes. Before I get to my last recommendation, I’m going to stop here for a second and tell you that if you’re not built for this one, you definitely won’t be built for the next one.

Buffet Infinity

I watched 2025’s Buffet Infinity for the first time last week because it only recently started making the rounds on digital, and I have not stopped thinking about it since. Buffet Infinity is reminiscent of, and openly inspired by, another analog horror web series known as Local 58, but it completely does its own thing. Local 58 tells its story through public access broadcasts, but the horror comes from the fact that WCLV-TV is repeatedly hijacked by supernatural entities trying to use media to manipulate the population into doing terrible things, including committing suicide.

Buffet Infinity pushes this kind of storytelling to its absolute extreme with a premise involving a sinkhole, a death cult, and a sentient restaurant of unknown origin that’s constantly expanding and consuming the surrounding community. It’s 100 minutes of the kind of public access commercials you used to see on local cable during the late ’90s and early aughts.

While watching 100 minutes of commercials sounds exhausting (and it is), what happens next is what makes this such an effective piece of analog horror. The actors in each commercial, whether they’re representing a law firm, insurance company, or pawn shop, all become vaguely aware of the titular restaurant’s presence and influence. They’re speaking in an almost coded language, trying to warn you about what’s happening.

Meanwhile, Buffet Infinity keeps growing, gets into scraps with rival businesses, and becomes increasingly unhinged until the whole thing boils over into a cosmic horror so all-consuming that you need to walk it off for a good minute.

Plenty More Where That Came From

Listen, there’s plenty more where that came from, and I’ve only begun to scratch the surface. The thing about analog horror is that it has so many different flavors that you can’t lump it into a single category. I hope this primer points you in the right direction and shows you some of the common themes that run throughout the subgenre.

Analog horror specializes in liminal space, found footage, lost media, and our fear of the unknown. It’s been largely produced by kids on YouTube who know what they want to see but haven’t found it anywhere else. It’s the future of horror, and Backrooms has proven just how effective it can be at capturing an audience’s imagination and, more importantly, their undivided attention. It’s low-budget, doesn’t follow any known conventions, and every time I think I’ve seen it all, something from this wheelhouse blows me away and leaves me hungry for more.

Hopefully, this primer sets you in the right direction. Try to keep up, though, because I think we’re going to continue seeing some really great content come from the most unassuming places.

General Hospital fans, we have got some absolutely shocking casting news for you about Maxie Jones (Kirsten Storms) and Serena Baldwin and two more exits, plus some other ins and outs.

General Hospital: Serena Baldwin Recast – Kelly Krueger Steps In

So, we’ll get to the big Kirsten Storms stuff in just a moment. But first, let’s talk recast. There is a new Serena Baldwin coming to the ABC soap opera. If you’ve forgotten, she was last played by Carly Schroeder, who was in the role from 1997 through 2003, but she will not be back as Serena. The reason’s pretty interesting. Back in 2019, Carly Schrader joined the Army, and she’s pretty badass. She’s an officer and five years ago she also got her airborne wings.

That’s paratrooper training by the way and post videos of her out there shooting machine guns and all that army stuff. So with Carly serving her country, they needed a new Serena and they signed up another gorgeous soap vet to play her. General Hospital cast soap veteran Kelly Krueger for the role. She was on Young and the Restless from 2002 to 2019, off and on as McKenzie Browning.

She’s also done Christmas movies like so many soap stars do. Kelly also did a dozen episodes on Bold and the Beautiful as a character named Eva. That role was fun for Kelly because she got to work with her now ex-husband, then husband, soap actor Darren Brooks, who just returned to Bold and the Beautiful as Wyatt Spencer (Darin Brooks).

General Hospital: Serena Baldwin’s Connections

So, if you don’t remember Serena Baldwin, let’s talk about her because she’s got on-screen ties that are interesting. Lucy Coe (Lynn Herring) was her surrogate mom and Scott Baldwin (Kin Shriner) is her biological father. Dominique Stanton was Serena’s biological mom and Dominique was dying back in the day, and she wanted to leave her husband Scotty a child.

So, Lucy served as her surrogate and after Dominique died, we’ve seen Lucy playing a maternal role in Serena’s life ever since. And of course, Lucy was also on again, off again with Scotty. And with Serena coming back, it would be great if Scotty also returned. I love me some Kin Shriner. But in the meantime, her pseudo mom, Lucy, is still very active in Port Charles. And more importantly, there is a half-brother that Serena does not know and has not met, Cody Bell (Josh Kelly). They share the same mom, Dominique, but his biological father is, of course, Mac Scorpio (John J York).

We know that Cody is older than Serena by a few years, and their mom gave Cody up for adoption to protect him. And it was only a couple of years ago that he came to town and found out Mac was his dad, and they’ve been forming a relationship. So, it’d be pretty interesting to see Serena getting to know Cody. So, Kelly Krueger began taping scenes as Serena on Monday, June 8th. She’s going to make her onscreen debut during July sweeps. Actress Kelly Krueger said she is honored and excited to play the part of Serena.

General Hospital: Kirsten Storms Steps Back from Maxie Jones Role

All right, now let’s talk about Kirsten Storms. She has only had 10 episodes as Maxie Jones this year and we’re getting close to halfway through the year. We last saw Kirsten Storms on March 13th. Maxie’s absence has been glaring, especially with Nathan West’s (Ryan Paevey) evil twin back. And we leaked here before it was confirmed that Kirsten was going to be taking a break as Maxie.

That was because of a brain aneurysm and her moving cross country to Nashville because her ex-husband Brandon Barash, who also used to be on General Hospital as Johnny DiMera, was relocating there with their daughter Harper. And that also put Kirsten closer to her best friend Emmy Ryland who lives in St. Louis.

General Hospital: Kirsten’s Real Life Challenges

Now, fortunately, Kirsten’s doctor decided to hold off. He said they could take a wait and see approach to her brain aneurysm, but she has still had soap opera level drama in her real life while taking a break from playing Maxie. We know that Kirsten reported that her apartment had been broken into and as a result, her phone was hacked. She showed some security footage of somebody at her door in the wee hours of the morning being weird.

And then of course came the blindside news that Brandon Barash took out a restraining order to limit her access to their daughter. Kirsten has been open in the past about her mental health journey talking to Maurice Benard on his state of mind podcast about her struggles with bipolar one and now she’s clarifying her status as Maxie Jones on General Hospital.

Kirsten Storms said, “As for what is in my future where General Hospital is concerned,” she said, “given what’s been going on, I can’t say I will feel comfortable heading back to Los Angeles and returning to work. This has been an eye-opening experience about the downside of my profession. My daughter is my entire life. She is and always will be my first priority.”

So, there you have it. Seems pretty clear that she is walking away from playing Maxie. So, we may end up getting a recast at some point if Kirsten Storms doesn’t change her mind about staying away from LA. And of course, storyline demands Maxie’s return. So, they’ve had an actress fill in for her before. Maybe they’ll do that for now. It’s a shame. She’s a great actress. She was also great over on Days of Our Lives as Belle Black. And I loved Kirsten on Dirty Soap back in the day. However, prioritizing your own health and your child, those seem like good choices that she’s making for herself right now. So, let’s hope everything goes well for her.

General Hospital: Other Exits and Casting Updates

Now, let’s talk about other exits in this General Hospital ins and outs update. First, in case you missed it, Marc Forget has exited as Pascal Leveque. And it looks like Kristina Corinthos-Davis (Kate Mansi) may have her last air date this Friday, June 12th. Actress Kate Mansi said to be sure to watch that day to learn about Kristina’s future. And then on the most recent GH episode, she told Lucas Jones (Van Hansis) that she was leaving Port Charles in a few days. But Kristina still has to tell her parents, Alexis Davis (Nancy Lee Grahn) and Sonny Corinthos (Maurice Benard). But Kristina has both of those conversations this week. We know that from General Hospital spoilers. So, I think that Friday might be her last day. It’s not absolutely confirmed yet, though.

We’ve also got Anna Devane (Finola Hughes) back taping, and she should be on screen very soon because she’s been back for a few weeks. And Jason Morgan (Steve Burton) came back on Monday, June 1st to filming. So his first air date should also hit during July sweeps. However, our leaker said we may not see Jason in Port Charles for a while, even though he’ll be back to General Hospital. There is chatter that Burton’s initial few weeks may just be Jason in Indonesia where the WSB sent him.

Kind of like when we got Drew Cain Quartermaine (Cameron Mathison) when he was recast. If you remember when he debuted, he was being held and tortured by Victor Cassadine (Charles Shaughnessy) and Peter August (Wes Ramsey). I think they were on a ship and then maybe later in a camp, but I know they were on a ship. Anyway, we’ve also got a new hunk coming to the Port Charles scene. Aussie actor Dean Geyer makes his debut in July as Tristan Roberts, a character named in honor of Robert Scorpio actor Tristan Rogers. The latest chatter I’ve heard is that he may be playing a doctor.

We’ve also got a new Scout Cain coming. They’re doing a recast and they’re aging up Drew’s daughter, making her a teenager. Kayden Tokarski takes over from Cosette Abinante. Scout was born to Sam McCall (Kelly Monaco) and Drew in 2017, so she should be nine. The last actress was 12, so they kind of aged her up a little. And now they are rapid aging her by an additional seven years. She will be 16 years old when the new actress steps into the role.

Diamond Brown‘s recent social media message has internet users strongly divided.

RELATED: Whew! Diamond Brown Reportedly Files Paternity Suit Seeking Custody & Legal Fees Against Chris Brown

More On Diamond Brown’s Recent Social Media Message

On Monday, June 8, Diamond Brown took to Instagram Story to share a lengthy text post. At this time, it remains unclear whether the text was her own words or a reposted social media graphic. Nonetheless, the text read, “I STAY IN MY LANE. Let’s be clear. I don’t bother people, I don’t compete with people, or move off jealousy, bitterness, or weird energy. I stay in my lane, focus on myself, and genuinely be minding my business. But one thing people need to stop doing is throwing rocks then hiding their hands when somebody finally reacts…”

See the full message below.

Internet Users Are Strongly Divided in Reaction To Diamond Brown’s Recent Social Media Message

Internet users slid in TSR’s comment section, strongly divided in reactions to Diamond Brown’s social media message.

More On Recent Events With The Mom & Chris Brown

Diamond Brown’s social media message arrives amid her ongoing paternity and custody suit with Chris Brown. As The Shade Room previously reported, in April, Diamond filed a suit noting Chris’ paternity of their daughter, Lovely. Additionally, Diamond requested that she be granted legal and physical custody of the child. Furthermore, Diamond asked that Chris only be granted visitation.

In response, Chris reportedly requested joint custody, per The Shade Room.

Last week, Diamond Brown appeared to respond to Chris’s reported response to her suit by throwing some apparent shade online.

RELATED: Oop! Diamond Brown Seemingly Throws Shade At Chris Brown Amid Him Reportedly Responding To Her Paternity & Custody Suit

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 5 seconds ago

Evil twin storylines have been around forever. Soap Operas use them at least once a year, and sometimes, the evil twin becomes more popular than the good twin. Star Trek: The Original Series introduced the Mirror Universe, where evil Spock had a goatee, creating a simple visual language for when someone is evil. Star Trek isn’t where you can find the best evil twin storyline though, that would be the 1982 hit series, Knight Rider, starring David Hasselhoff. It’s the best because not only does Michael Knight have an evil twin, Garthe, they even made an evil counterpart for K.I.T.T.: K.A.R.R., complete with an evil goatee. 

Knight Rider Has The Best Evil Twins

Both K.I.T.T. and K.A.R.R are modified Pontiac Firebird Transams loaded with all sorts of weapons and gadgets, except one AI is designed to save people, and the other was damaged and corrupted to only pursue self-preservation. K.A.R.R. was the original prototype that resurfaces in the Season 1 episode, “Trust Doesn’t Rust,” after some thieves recover it from deep storage. Michael Knight (David Hasselhoff) and K.I.T.T. stop his rampage by taking advantage of the self-preservation instinct with a game of chicken. It’s an 80s action series, and it’s incredible.

In that first appearance, K.A.R.R. resembles K.I.T.T., except he’s voiced by Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen, who returned in the 2008 series), instead of Mr. Feeny (William Daniels). When K.A.R.R. resurfaced in Season 3, he was modified to include a two-tone paint job: black on top, and silver on the bottom. The result? K.A.R.R. has the evil goatee. 

K.A.R.R. should have been in more than the two episodes. The concept of an evil car is incredible and could have been milked for at least one episode a season. Knight Rider video games have done the evil car justice, and in every iteration of the show, K.A.R.R. eventually shows up at least once. K.I.T.T. wasn’t the only one on the show to have an evil twin, which annoyed David Hasselhoff. 

David Hasselhoff Put On The Evil Facial Hair

Hasselhoff’s Michael Knight isn’t actually Michael Knight: he’s Michael Long with a surgically constructed face that we learn was modeled after Garthe Knight, the son of Knight Industries founder Wilton Knight. You know he’s evil because he’s played by David Hasselhoff with a thin mustache and a soul patch. Well, that, and he straight-up murders a man who was going to squeal about his plan to use his modified big rig, Goliath, to steal missiles from the U.S. government. 

Garthe appears in Season 2, first in “Goliath” and again in the aptly named “Goliath Returns,” and he likely could have appeared more times except Hasselhoff has been vocal over his dislike of playing Garthe Knight. In a moment of delightful honesty, he’s explained in interviews that playing both roles meant he was always on set for those episodes and couldn’t take breaks in his trailer during production. That’s the best reason yet to drop a character from a show. 

Knight Rider isn’t a particularly deep series, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s from a time before the concept of a mythology arc was needed in every show. Weekly adventures were good enough for audiences of the 80s to make it one of the most popular shows, and there’s always a chance that it could come back. Knight Rider (2008) may have crashed and burned, but the concept of someone trying to do good and battle crime with a superintelligent car is never going to be out of style. Unlike Garthe Knight’s soul patch. 

Machine Gun Kelly didn’t have the smoothest blackout tattoo process.

MGK, 36 — whose real name is Colson Baker — opened up about getting sick from his ink while chatting with Billboard Canada in a new interview published on Monday, June 8. To achieve his look, MGK worked with celebrity tattoo artist ROXX, who created his “dark mode” tattoo and recommended he take two years to get his desired results.

“She warned me that it was going to be near impossible, even from a pain tolerance standpoint,” he told the publication. “I said, ‘Yeah, we got two months.’”

He continued, “After the first week, we hit my lymph nodes around my armpits and shoulders, and I got really sick. My skin was turning yellow. I wasn’t able to sleep. I stopped being able to move certain parts of my upper body.”

Despite the symptoms he endured, the process was still worth it to MGK. “I came out the other side extremely inspired,” he explained. “Not just because of what I had done, but because of what I had to overcome.”

The rapper shared that he decided to get the tattoo because he was “looking for a change that wasn’t just a sound wave.”

Thank You!

You have successfully subscribed.

“It had to be something physical,” he said, noting that his precious tattoos reminded him of phases in his life that he didn’t want to remember.

Related: MGK Uses Oxygen Chamber to Recover From ‘Painful’ Blackout Tattoo

That’s one way to use a hyperbolic chamber, Machine Gun Kelly. In a video shared via Instagram on Monday, April 1, the “Don’t Let me Go” rapper, 33, took fans along as he received a massive upper body tattoo across multiple sessions, including clips of his scarring, bleeding and swelling from the time-consuming tattoo. The […]

“Who the f*** am I?” MGK said, revealing there were days he didn’t recognize himself. “I saw death and drugs in all these patterns that I was literally writing on my body. There were happy tattoos, sad tattoos, holy tattoos, hellish tattoos. It was like my bipolarity was screaming off my skin.”

His final look was complete with a full blackout chest with cutouts over his arms and abs, revealing parts of his old tattoos. He first debuted his massive tattoo in February 2024 via Instagram.

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 1 hour ago

Over on Red Letter Media, Mike Stoklassa once expressed an interesting theory: that Star Trek: The Original Series was more of a horror show than anything else. After all, exploring those strange new worlds often came at a price, with Red Shirts getting killed left and right by some of the scariest monsters in the entire galaxy. Later iterations of the franchise leaned into the idea of Trek as horror, including turning an entire movie, First Contact, into an Aliens homage. Now, even though no new Trek series is currently in production, the franchise is about to embrace horror like never before.

This week, Bloober Team and the Paramount Games Division announced an exciting new video game called Star Trek: Shadow Frontier. It’s a survival horror game where you take control of a Starfleet officer who crashes onto an alien planet and must safely navigate its frightening and often lethal environment. That officer is Ro Laren, the rebellious Bajoran officer from The Next Generation. Ro actor Michelle Forbes once turned down the chance to star in Deep Space Nine and only returned decades later for a brief appearance in Picard. But now, after more than 30 years since she left TNG, she’s ready to take her rightful place as Star Trek’s latest leading lady.

Ro, Ro, Ro, Your Boat

What do we know about Star Trek: Shadow Frontier? In an interview with IGN, Bloober Team’s Michał Gembicki said that Ro Laren crashes on a planet that serves as “a graveyard for ships,” and she must “figure out what happened there and why is there so much wreckage.” The game is designed as a psychological thriller, and a big part of that has to do with this planet’s biggest secret: namely, there is some kind of entity that has taken control of it! 

According to Bloober and Paramount, this is a “distant planet overtaken by a strange consciousness,” and “the more [Ro Laren] uncovers, the deeper she is pulled into a corrupted labyrinth where her memories twist, and the planet threatens to sever her connection to reality.” Figuring out this planet’s deal becomes more personal to her over the course of the game. “Only by solving the mysteries of this strange world can Ro hope to make peace with the demons of her past, boldly going into the heart of darkness like never before.” It’s unknown when this game takes place, but the presence of a TNG-era communicator indicates it may take place before Star Trek: Generations.

Star Trek Meets Resident Evil

Right now, Star Trek is getting a steady influx of new video games, including the recent Star Trek: Voyager–Across the Unknown. While we have no way of knowing if Star Trek: Shadow Frontier will be any good (it doesn’t come out until 2027), fans are already hyped because Michelle Forbes will be reprising her role as Ro Laren, the main character. Ensign Ro was introduced into The Next Generation in Season 5 as an ensign with a rough past and a chip on her shoulder; she left in Season 7 after joining the Maquis, a group she was sent to infiltrate. She popped back up in Picard, where it was revealed she had rejoined Starfleet.

One reason older fans like myself are hyped to see Michelle Forbes return is that she was originally meant to have a much larger role in the franchise. She helped to popularize the Bajorans on The Next Generation, and Star Trek’s producers wanted to bring Ro Laren to Deep Space Nine as a main character. However, Forbes didn’t want to commit over half a decade to one job (and the rest of her life to fan conventions), so she declined the offer. This led to Nana Visitor getting cast as a different Bajoran with a sketchy past and a chip on her shoulder: Major Kira.

Somehow, Ro Returned

For decades, most assumed we’d never see Forbes in Star Trek again. To everyone’s shock, she popped up in Picard as a Starfleet Intelligence officer, one who tried to warn Picard about Changeling infiltration of Starfleet before she was killed by the very shapeshifters she had been investigating. We don’t get much information about how she was rehabilitated and ultimately brought back into Starfleet, but that Picard episode (“Impostor”) establishes that she always felt guilt for leaving Picard and the Enterprise crew. It’s very likely that Star Trek: Shadow Frontier will explore that guilt and possibly contextualize how and why Ro ultimately left the Maquis and returned to the Starfleet fold.

Star Trek: Shadow Frontier is coming out sometime in 2027 and will be released on Windows PC and all major consoles. We’re likely to get more information on this game in the coming months, but it’s already made a splash: the trailer is moody and atmospheric, and many fans are excited to see this sci-fi franchise’s take on survival horror. Mostly, though, we’re hyped to see the return of Michelle Forbes, one of the greatest actors in the franchise. Just what happened to Ro Laren between Next Generation and Picard? There’s only one way to find out, so be sure to set your controllers on stun when this game releases next year!

Justin Moore announced he will be taking a break from touring to prioritize his well-being.

“I’ve made the decision to take some time to focus on my health,” the country singer, 42, wrote via Instagram on Monday, June 8. “As a result, I’ll be stepping away from touring for a short period and will be unable to perform some upcoming shows.”

Moore added that the decision was made with his family in mind. Justin is married to wife Kate Moore and the couple share four children: daughters Ella, 16, Kennedy, 15, Rebecca, 12, and son Thomas, 9.

“This is the right decision for me and my family, and I appreciate everyone’s understanding and support,” he continued. “I look forward to getting back out there later this summer and doing what I love most.”

Related: TikToker Tayler Holder Cancels Tour Over ‘Constant’ Mental Health Struggles

TikTok star turned country music singer Tayler Holder canceled his nine-date When No One’s Around Tour to prioritize his mental health. “This is one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever had to make, but I need to cancel my upcoming shows,” Holder, 28, wrote via Instagram on Monday, May 11. “Over the past several months, […]

Several fans took to the comments section to send their well wishes the “You Look Like I Need a Drink” singer’s way.

“Without your health, you have nothing. Take care of yourself first❤️,” one wrote while another replied, “Please take care of yourself and that beautiful family you have built. Your fans will be right here. ❤️.”

Fellow country artist Jake Owen also sent his support to Justin.

“Take care of YOU brother and those kiddos and mama,” the “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” musician wrote.

Last year, Justin was announced as one of the opening acts for Riley Green’s Cowboy As It Gets Tour, which kicked off back in April. The “Lettin’ the Night Roll” performer was expected to take the stage during the upcoming shows in Green Bay, Wisconsin, Salt Lake City, Hartford, Connecticut, Sioux, South Dakota and more. Justin also had a series of his own concerts scheduled as well. He was initially set to tour from July to November.

Justin started his country music career in 2009 when he dropped his self-titled debut album, which included his first hit song “Small Town USA.” Two years later, Justin won two Inspirational Country Music Awards for his cover of Rhett Akins’ song “If Heaven (Wasn’t So Far Away.)”

Thank You!

You have successfully subscribed.

Advertisement

Related: Morgan Wallen Apologizes for Abruptly Canceled Show, Gives Health Update

Back on the horse. Morgan Wallen apologized to fans who were impacted by his last-minute concert cancellation as he prepared to return to tour. “What’s up, everybody? I just wanted to let you know I am in Jacksonville, [Florida],” the 29-year-old country singer said in a video shared via his Instagram Story on Thursday, May […]

The singer continued to rise in the country scene as he scored a nomination for Artist of the Year: Breakthrough Artist at the 2012 American Country Awards. He ultimately lost to Owen, now 44, during the star-studded ceremony. Two years later, Justin took home the award for New Artist of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards.

Justin released his latest album This Is My Dirt in October 2024. The record included collaborations with Blake Shelton, Dierks Bentley and Randy Houser.

“My new album is officially out now! Blake, Dierks, Randy— thank you boys for jumping on here with me, y’all crushed it,” Justin wrote via Instagram at the time. “To the fans, I can’t thank you enough. You’re the reason we’ve been fortunate enough to make it to an 8th album. Hope y’all enjoy this one as much as I do, go check it out and let me know what you think.”